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COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 



The Observations of Professor Maturin 



Columbia University Press Sales Agents 

New York : Lemcke iff Buechner 
30-J2 West 21th Street 

London : Humphrey Milford 
Amen Corner, E. C. 



The Observations of 
Professor Maturin 



By 
Clyde Furst 




New York 

Columbia University Press 

1 9 1 6 

All rights reserved 



Copyright, ip/6, by Columbia University Press 
Printed March, 1916 

Reprinted, by permission, from 
The New York Evening Post 

job <& '»\*> 



D. B. Updike '/The Merrymount Press • Boston 



ike '/The Me rrymo ut, 

MAR 30 1916 

2ci.A428332 



Dedicated to 
Professor Maturin's 

Oldest and Best Friend 
R. E. M. 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/observationsofprOOfurs 



Table of Contents 



CHAPTER 

i. The Staff of Life 


PAGE 

3 


ii. 


The Sindbad Society 


*7 


in. 


Foreign Travel at Home 


2 5 


IV. 


Qountry Life 


3S 


v. 


Food for Thought 


44 


VI. 


'Beside the Sea 


54 


VII. 


Qhristmas 


65 


VIII. 


The Sovran Herb 


75 


IX. 


dvlen's Faces 


85 


X. 


{Mental Hygiene 


94 


XI. 


The Mystery of r Dress 


109 


XII. 


Questions at Issue 


117 


XIII. 


The Fountain of Youth 


122 


XIV. 


The Contemporary Fi5lion Company 
[ vii ] 


130 



Contents 

CHAPTER PAGE 

xv. The Old T)o5lor 137 

xvi. 'Breakfasting with Tortia 147 

xvii. Summer Science 157 

xviii. ^Measuring the Mind 168 

xix. The Club of the Bachelor Maids 1 83 

xx. *A Small College 192 

xxi. Old Town Revisited 202 

xxii. The County Fair 215 



Introduction 

IT was never my good fortune actually to 
meet Professor Maturin, or even to see him, 
although in the latter case I should instantly 
have recognized him, so familiar have I been 
through my mind's eye, at least, with his personal 
appearance — his slender figure somewhat stoop- 
ing with the bodily inclination of the scholar, 
the clear-cut features that could only have fitted 
his clear-cut mind, and the thoughtful eyes that 
were their necessary concomitant. I had known, 
of course, of his predilection for the Athenaeum, 
and his habit of dining at that club of intellectual 
and gastronomic repute, and I was aware of his 
membership in the veracious Sindbad Society 
whose meetings he frequently attended; but here, 
too, and principally from the fad, no doubt, that 
I was a member of neither, I had never been 
able to bring about the much desired personal 
acquaintance with him. 

Of acquaintance, however, and even of a fairly 
satisfactory sort, there has nevertheless been no 

[ix] 



Introduction 

lack, for I have read much that Professor Maturin 
has written, and I have remembered, although 
inadequately enough, many of the things that he 
has said with such understanding and insight of 
the real bearing of individual experience, along 
quite extraordinarily extended lines, upon the 
wide problems of human existence. 

It is so much the more a pleasure, accordingly, 
to me, and as it will be to all those who have read 
Professor Maturin before only sporadically and 
at intervals, at length to have the opportunity to 
read him consecutively, and thus to get those 
side-lights and refle&ions of understanding that 
can only come with a reasonable contiguity of 
statement. 

In the present book, moreover, we shall be 
able to read the sayings of this philosopher of the 
cheerful mind as they have been remembered 
and recorded by one who, better than any one 
else at all, knew Professor Maturin as he thought, 
and as he spoke, and as he had his being. It is 
a record, as it will be very easy to discover, of 
one who has thought much and thought well, for 

[*] 



Introduction 

there is a great difference, as we all know, in the 
quality as well as in the quantity of thinking. In 
it all there is an intelle&ual optimism that inev- 
itably follows the thought wherever it roams — 
and it often roams far afield — which is one of 
the thrice blessed things of life. If through it all 
there runs, as again may clearly be seen, the visi- 
ble thread of the conscious pursuit of happiness, 
Professor Maturin is no mere eudemonist whose 
belly is his god and whose goal is pleasure, but 
rather one who sees in the attainment of personal 
happiness the rightful accessory of a rounded and 
rational living. And with it all, and notwithstand- 
ing his calling, and in spite of the fact that he 
himself must have been conscious of an unusual 
knowledge which leads him at times even into 
the imperilled field of epigram, it is all done, not 
with a pedantic air of professorial sophistication, 
but with genuine human sympathy. And in this 
spirit he is commended to that wider circle of 
readers who are now to be able to know him. 

William H. Carpenter 

Columbia University 
February 14, 1 9 1 6 



The Observations of Professor Maturin 



The Staff of Life 

MY friend Professor Bedelar Maturin exer- 
cises the right of a bachelor and a man of 
fifty to a considerable number of eccentricities. 
All of these are harmless, since he is by nature a 
gentleman; and, his habit being that of a scholar, 
some of them are of more than ordinary interest. 
I very well remember my first learning of that 
one I am about to describe. My family having 
left town for the summer, I found him dining 
at the Athenaeum, as I knew him frequently to 
do for the sake of detachment from the bachelor 
menage he maintains — as much for his books as 
for himself — in a house near the river, not far 
from the university. 

He beckoned me to take my already ordered 
dinner at the particular corner table for which his 
preference is always respe&ed by his fellow Athe- 
nians, and, after a smile of greeting, he passed 
over to me the book he had been reading — " The 
Physiology of Taste," by Brillat-Savarin — with 
the quiet comment, "The standard and gauge 
of modern civilization." 

I had never before seen the work of that high- 

[3] 



The Observations of 

priest of gastronomy, but before examining it I 
looked my surprise at the apparent enthusiasm 
of the scholar whose abstemious habits were well 
known to his friends, and whose slender figure, 
thoughtful eyes, and clear-cut features made it 
impossible to associate him with the pleasures of 
the table. For reply he merely indicated several 
of the " Fundamental Truths of the Science," on 
the open page before me : 

" But for life the universe were nothing; and 
all that has life requires nourishment." 

" The fate of nations depends upon how they 
are fed." 

"The man of sense and culture alone under- 
stands eating." 

I was familiar with Dean Swift's tracing the 
origin of certain essays to the consumption of par- 
ticular varieties of cheese, and I had read Ma- 
turing own whimsical paragraphs explaining the 
peculiarities of certain national literatures by the 
characteristics of their national beverages, and 
paralleling the growth of humanitarianism with 
the increasing use of tobacco, of which he is spar- 
ing; but he seemed now to be serious, so that 
I merely asked what he made of such a state- 
ment as the following, which I read from his 
author: " The discovery of a new dish does more 

[4] 



Professor Maturin 

for the happiness of the human race than the dis- 
covery of a planet." 

Explaining that he would have the author 
convince me, rather than himself, he indicated 
yet another paragraph: "What praise can be 
refused the science which sustains us from the 
cradle to the grave, which entrances the delights 
of love and the pleasures of friendship, which dis- 
arms hatred, makes business easier, and affords 
us, during the short voyage of our lives, the only 
enjoyments that both relieve us from fatigue and 
themselves entail none!" 

"Take it, and read it," he said, as I looked 
up. " I know it by heart." I gladly accepted the 
volume, for there was here evidently more than 
appeared; but I also expressed the wish that he 
would, himself, first tell me more about it; and 
this, retaking the book, his own dinner being now 
finished and mine but about to begin, he pro- 
ceeded to do. 

" 1 should not need to remind you," he began, 
"that I am no friend to indulgence, much less 
to so gross a form as over-feeding, nor to speak 
of my known antagonism to every form of ig- 
norance — except to explain that it is for these 
reasons that I have become an earnest advocate 
of gastronomy, which endeavors to transform 

[5] 



The Observations of 

eating from the ignorant indulgence it usually is 
to a reasonable science of nutrition and a refined 
art of enjoyment. Whatever popular disesteem 
the science and the art still suffer is due either to 
ignorance of its serious endeavor, or to a Puri- 
tanic attitude that is both inconsistent and irrev- 
erent. The fabric of nature is so constituted that 
all of our essential processes are accompanied by 
pleasure; a thoroughly consistent ascetic would 
necessarily cease to exist. 

"Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, although of course 
not the founder of gastronomy, is its most admir- 
able modern champion. He lived from the first 
half of the eighteenth century through the first 
quarter of the nineteenth, first as mayor of his 
native town of Belley in France ; then, during the 
Revolution, an exile in Switzerland and in Amer- 
ica; and, finally, during the last third of his life, 
a judge in Paris of the highest national court. 
The fame of his professional wisdom and justice 
was great, but that of his personal benevolence 
and geniality was far greater. The choicest flavor 
and charm of many years of social life he pre- 
served in the book he apparently intended to 
leave, at his death, as a legacy of good cheer to 
his friends. The record of his love of good living 
was to serve him, a bachelor, as a posteritv. 

[6] 



Professor Maturin 

44 His fears that so genial a production might 
seem inconsistent with his judicial dignity were 
overcome by arguments which are given in a 
prefatory dialogue, and the volume was published 
anonymously in 1825, a year before his death. 
Even in so short a time the book was crowned with 
extraordinary popularity. Although one would 
hesitate, perhaps, to call it 'adorable,' as Balzac 
did, it is certainly one of those rarely spontaneous 
and charming outpourings of personality that be- 
long apart with White's 'Seaborne' and Walton's 
'Angler.' 

"In addition to the Prefatory Dialogue and 
the Fundamental Truths, already mentioned, the 
little volume includes a Preface, thirty 'Medi- 
tations,' or chapters, and, in conclusion, a dozen 
narrative and descriptive 'Varieties' bearing 
upon the subject. The whole amounts to less than 
three hundred small pages. 

"The earlier chapters on the senses of taste, 
appetite, and thirst are largely physiological or 
psychological, but even here the author carries 
out with charm his intention of touching but 
lightly subje&s likely to be dull. Throughout he 
practices the preaching of the mad poet Blake, 
— 'To particularize is the great distinction of 
merit,' — and everywhere he introduces original 

[ 7 ] 



The Observations of 

anecdotes, witticisms, and similar side-dishes. 
Although Savarin separates the functions of taste 
into direct, complete, and reflective, he finds him- 
self unable to classify its results further than to 
suggest some such gradation as, — positive, beef; 
comparative, veal; superlative, pheasant. For 
its greatest satisfaction one should eat slowly 
and in minute portions — all that is valuable of 
'Fletcherism' in a sentence. Anything else would 
be unworthy of our perfected organism, 'the struc- 
ture of the tongue of all animals being analogous 
to the reach of their intelligence.' Under 'Thirst' 
there is a similar, but even more daringly imagi- 
native observation: 'The desire for fermented 
liquors and curiosity about a future state are the 
two distinctive attributes of man as the master- 
piece of nature/ 

" Perhaps the most valuable, certainly the most 
pleasing, of the chapters are those on ' Gastron- 
omy,' 'The Love of Good Living,' 'People Fond 
of Good Living,' 'Gastronomic Tests,' and 'The 
Pleasures of the Table.' 

" Gastronomy is defined as ' the scientific know- 
ledge of all that relates to man as an eater;' 
being founded upon natural history, physics, 
chemistry, economics, and cookery, as well as on 
the sciences already touched upon; and affecting 

[8] 



Professor Maturin 

physically, mentally, and morally, every individ- 
ual, of every class of society, every moment of 
his life. Some knowledge of it is therefore indis- 
pensable to all, and the more as one ascends the 
social scale; it being well known that the most 
momentous decisions of personal and of national 
life are made at table. 

" 4 The Love of Good Living' is shown to be 
not merely a physical, but an intellectual and a 
moral quality as well, 'almost deserving to rank 
as a virtue ; ' opposing excess, developing discrim- 
ination, promoting physical health, and aiding 
moral resignation to the laws of nature. In addi- 
tion, it is an easily and constantly available source 
of natural and innocent pleasure in a world of 
pain. 

"People fond of good living, especially physi- 
cians, men of letters, churchmen, and people of 
sense and culture in general, — others being in- 
capable of the necessary appreciation and judg- 
ment, — always live longer than ordinary men. 
Napoleon's worst defeats were due to his inju- 
dicious diet. The wise in regard to food may 
usually be known by their mere appearance, but 
for cases of doubt Brillat-Savarin suggests a series 
of 4 Gastronomic Tests,' or dishes, of such in- 
disputable excellence that those who do not in- 

[9] 



The Observations of 

stantly respond may immediately be declared un- 
worthy. Thus: For a small income, filet of veal 
larded with bacon, or sauerkraut bristling with 
sausages; for a moderate income, filet of beef 
with gravy, or boiled turbot; for a generous in- 
come, truffled turkey, or stuffed pike with cream 
of prawns. It is important in these tests that gen- 
erous portions be provided, for quantity as well 
as quality has its effect. 

"The conclusion of the meditation "On the 
Pleasures of the Table ' must be quoted entire, 
so worthy is it of a place in 4 The Golden Book 
of Hospitality:' 'Let the number of guests be 
small, that the conversation may be constantly 
general; of various occupations, but analogous 
tastes; the men of wit without pretension, the 
women pleasant, but not coquettish. Let the 
dishes be few but choice, and the wines of the 
first quality; the order from the more substantial 
to the lighter, the simpler to the finer flavors. Let 
the meal proceed without hurry or bustle ; the cof- 
fee be hot, the liqueurs chosen with care. Let the 
room to which the guests retire be large enough 
for cards, for those who cannot do without them, 
while leaving ample scope for conversation; the 
guests animated with the hope of still further 
pleasure. Then let the tea be not too strong, the 

[ 10] 



Professor Maturin 

toast artistically buttered, the punch skilfully 
made. Finally, let nobody leave before eleven, 
and everybody be in bed by twelve.' 

"After reaching such an elevation, Brillat-Sa- 
varin wisely follows the dramatic principle of 
relief, by introducing anecdotes of the halts of 
a hunting party, and chapters on digestion, rest, 
sleep, and dreams. His observations and illustra- 
tions are always interesting and picturesque, fre- 
quently very suggestive, and sometimes strik- 
ingly modern — as when he says, 'Digestion, of 
all the bodily functions, has most influence on 
the morale of the individual;' when he recom- 
mends for sleeping an airy room, no bed cur- 
tains, and light but warm coverings; or when 
he discusses foods that produce sleep, and those 
that induce pleasant dreams. 

"The theme of the meditation 'On Corpu- 
lence' — 'The great majority of us eat and drink 
too much' — is of such general and permanent 
applicability that it is rediscovered every decade 
and announced with trumpets. The chapter 'On 
the Prevention or Cure of Corpulence ' outlines 
the diet by means of which for thirty years the au- 
thor kept that tendency in himself 'to the limit 
of the imposing' — a statement that his portrait 
well bears out. After a counter meditation on 

[ » ] 



The Observations of 

leanness, some felicitations over the decline of 
fasting, and an excursus on 'Exhaustion and 
Death' — 'Death itself being not unaccompa- 
nied by pleasure when it is natural' — the au- 
thor is again ready for a higher flight. 

"This occurs in the longest chapters of the 
book, in the form of 'A Philosophical History 
of Cookery, Ancient, Mediaeval, and Modern,' 
with an appendix, 'On Parisian Dining-Houses.' 
Here, indeed, is richness: the advantages and 
disadvantages of eating raw meat; the primitive 
feasting in the 'Iliad;' the advent of boiling in 
the Old Testament; how Cadmus brought the 
alphabet and good cooking to Greece; the elab- 
orate and sometimes strange taste of the Romans, 
— as for dormice and assafoetida, — and a survey 
of the ancient literature of the subjed, from the 
fragmentary poem on gastronomy by Archestra- 
tus, to the convivial poetry of Horace and Ti- 
bullus. The whole story is told, although briefly, 
excepting only the peculiar taste of the Greeks 
for mingling sea-water and turpentine with their 
wines. 

"The mediaeval and modern development of 
the art is sketched, although of necessity more 
rapidly, from the rescue of cookery from barba- 
rism by Charlemagne; through the introduction 

[ «] 



Professor Maturin 

of spices from the East, garlic from Palestine, 
parsley from Italy, coffee from Turkey, and the 
potato from America; to the ages of pastry and 
of sugar, and the final culmination of the art in 
political gastronomy. Every line of this section 
contains such good things as 'coffee should be 
crushed, not ground;' and, Tt was Talleyrand 
who first brought from Italy the custom of tak- 
ing Parmesan cheese with soup.' But to select 
would be to quote the whole. 

"Restaurants — unhappily Savarin could not 
know the modern derivation from res and taurus 
— appear to have been invented in Paris in 1770. 
There is a fascinating picture of the best of the 
author's time, with three hundred dishes and a 
hundred wines; a height of eloquence over the 
cosmopolitan sources of a good dinner; and yet 
higher soaring over the Parisian missionaries of 
the doctrine throughout the civilized world. 

" Nor does inspiration wane in the chapter on 
'Gastronomic Principles Put into Practice ' — 4 the 
treasures of nature were not created to be trodden 
under foot ... a good dinner is but little dearer 
than a bad one ... a man may show himself a 
distinguished connoisseur without going beyond 
the limits of his actual needs.' 

"The last chapter, 4 Gastronomic Mythology,' 

['3] 



The Observations of 

is pure creation — of Gasterea, the tenth muse, 
her nature, habit, aspect, and worship; and then 
— for like Donne, 'when he is done, he is not 
done, for there is more ' — comes a ' Transition : ' 
' In writing I had a double object ... to lay down 
the fundamental theory of gastronomy, so that 
she would take her place among the sciences in 
that rank to which she has an incontestable right. 
The second, to define with precision what must 
be understood by the love of good living, so that 
for all time that social quality may be kept apart 
from gluttony and intemperance, with which 
many have absurdly confounded it.' 

"Finally follow the generous dozen of short 
'varieties' — anecdotes like 'The Cure's Ome- 
lette;' personal experiences of 'The Gastronome 
Abroad,' some in America ; original recipes and 
original verse; and an ' Historical Elegy,' in pity 
for the gastronomic ignorance of the past, and in 
prophetic vision of the full gastronomic glories 
of the year nineteen hundred. 

"But, alas," said Professor Maturin, slowly 
closing the book, " I cannot wish that he were 
here. The world is not yet ready for his message; 
he should have added another hundred years. It 
was fifty years before his work was well enough 
known outside of France to be translated; and 

[ '4 ] 



Professor Maturin 

even to-day, in spite of all its delightful quali- 
ties, not one in a hundred, even among reading 
men, know it. And yet, there has never been any- 
thing quite like it. Such a rare combination of 
race, time, and personality; of experience, culti- 
vation, and taste, seldom occurs more than once. 
But no other is necessary; nothing can be better 
than the best, and Savarin has handled his theme 
with unapproachable wisdom and charm, once 
for all. 

"The science has, of course, progressed im- 
mensely since his day. You may fill your shelves 
with portentous tomes on food and dietetics, and 
with experimental pamphlets from the Depart- 
ment of Agriculture. Educators have introduced 
instruction concerning food into the curriculum 
of the modern school. And I understand that 
there are magazines of practical cookery for such 
ladies as look to the affairs of their households. 
But as for Brillat-Savarin's hope that the science 
and the art of gastronomy, as he elaborated it, 
would soon become a part of the faith and prac- 
tice, the delight as well as the duty, of all culti- 
vated people, — that is yet far from fulfilment. 

" But, my good friend," and here Professor 
Maturin rose, shaking his long forefinger, "the 
truth will undoubtedly prevail, 'though long 

[ '5] 



Professor Maturin 

deferred, though long deferred,' as Lanier says. 
Take the book, and keep it — I make a practice 
of distributing copies — read it; you cannot 
help doing so at a single sitting; talk about it; 
become, like me, a propagandist, and the bless- 
ing of Gasterea will go with you. Good-night." 
And he was gone. 

My friend Professor Maturin spoke the very 
truth. I finished the book before I left my seat, 
and then and there became a fellow equestrian 
to Banbury Cross. Deliberately and with pre- 
pensive aforethought, I invite the reader to do 
the same, and thereby to gain not only personal 
pleasure and profit, but, in addition, the greater 
satisfaction of contributing a lasting good to 
others. 



[ .6] 



T 



II 

The Sindbad Society 

HE writer recently enjoyed the great privi- 
lege of being the guest of his friend, Pro- 
fessor Maturin, at a meeting of the Sindbad 
Society, an organization for the enjoyment of 
informal discussion concerning the theory and 
pra&ice, the graces and the usefulness, of foreign 
travel. 

Similar in purpose to the Travellers' Club of 
London, but lacking anything like the equip- 
ment of that body's sumptuous Pall Mall home, 
the Sindbad Society endeavors to fulfil its func- 
tion by means of occasional dinners in the pri- 
vate rooms of other clubs. Indeed, I was given 
to understand that the members were unanimous 
in considering a local habitation, or immovable 
property of any sort, to be most inappropriate 
for a club the very essence of which was pere- 
grination. My neighbor at the large round din- 
ner table averred that to own even a portrait of 
Sindbad the Sailor, the mythical founder and 
patron of the club, would be to embody in a con- 
crete objed sentiments of value only so long as 
they animated the mind. 

[ '7 ] 



The Observations of 

As we took our places at table, it became evi- 
dent, in spite of the recreative chara&er of the 
club, that here was no body of amateurs, to whom 
travel meant merely London and Paris, the Rhine 
and the Riviera. I recognized a former director 
of the American School in Rome, an artist and 
a craftsman who had just returned from Japan 
and India, an importer of things Persian, and 
a biologist who spent half his time in the South 
Seas. Professor Maturin described the other 
members to me as an engineer who had devel- 
oped oil wells in China, an archaeologist who di- 
rected excavations in Syria, former secretaries of 
legation at St. Petersburg and at Constantinople, 
an army officer from Manila, and an explorer 
who had climbed everything but the mountains 
of the moon. 

The dinner, although entirely without pose, 
was intentionally and interestingly exotic. Rus- 
sian preserved cucumbers and a soup of chest- 
nuts from the south of France were followed by 
an entree of lamb, prepared according to a Con- 
stantinople recipe, and by boned capon. The 
colonel mixed a Filipino salad-dressing, and with 
it the archaeologist supplied cigarettes made of 
coffee leaves. Finally, the engineer introduced a 
South American dessert of ripe red bananas, 

[ '»] 



Professor Maturin 

guava jelly, and sharp cheese, and with this was 
served Carlsbad burnt-fig coffee. The wines, al- 
though poured sparingly, were as interesting as 
the food. The cigars were Cuban vegueras. The 
endeavor, which was surely realized throughout, 
had evidently been to seek the unusual, not for the 
sake of mere strangeness, but for an excellence 
unattainable through the ordinary. 

The same might be said of the talk which ac- 
companied the meal. It was anything but con- 
scious or formal, and yet I noticed that leading 
questions were not only allowed but expe&ed, 
and that it was the custom of the entire company 
to listen when any conversation became gener- 
ally interesting. In this way I enjoyed a whole 
series of descriptions of forests and mountains, riv- 
ers and deserts, of barbarous and unfrequented 
countries, of harbors and fortifications, cities and 
courts, cathedrals and colleges, libraries and mu- 
seums; with anecdotes of experience and ad- 
venture, of state and society, of beautiful women 
and distinguished men. 

The near distance of Europe was by no means 
forgotten, but it was discussed in a way that made 
me feel that I must, in Bacon's phrase, have 
gone there "hooded," or, at least, as the mythi- 
cal American who checked off each city in his 

[ '9 ] 



The Observations of 

Baedeker after a hurried glance about him from 
the top of some tall building. In particular, I was 
possessed with successive desires to make good 
my deficiencies by going at once to live at a 
wonderful small hotel across the river in Paris, vis- 
iting a certain sculptor's studio in Madrid, dream- 
ing on the terraces of Lake Maggiore, and hear- 
ing the opera by telephone at Budapest. When 
the talk ranged more widely, as it did for the 
most part, I longed to observe a volcano and ex- 
perience an earthquake in action, and determined 
to journey without delay to Damascus for the 
sake of its baths and cafes, "the most exquisitely 
luxurious in the world;" that is, if I did not 
decide, instead, for Shepherd's hotel at Cairo, or, 
perhaps, the vale of Thingvalla in Iceland. 

With the cigars, the conversation shifted from 
details of observation and experience, by way of 
penetrative comment on men and manners, until 
it reached what seemed, at least to me, profound 
conclusions concerning national and social char- 
acteristics. The classical scholar, with a majority 
of the other members, opposed the craftsman and 
the engineer, in ascribing a certain monotony and 
shallowness to Japanese life, in spite of its old 
aestheticism and its new efficiency. Both of the 
diplomats endorsed the Persian specialist's state- 

[ *>] 



Professor Maturin 

ment that "the hope of the East is in Western 
inoculation; it will never regenerate itself." " Nor 
be regenerated," growled the colonel. " From my 
point of view," replied the artist, "it has no need 
to. Nature is the absolute artist, and nowhere else 
do people ] i ve so close to her. Rare natural beauty, 
a constant sun, and a mellow atmosphere give 
existence there such an intensity and richness that 
mere living becomes an art — 'pure pomegranate, 
not banana,' as they say in Egypt." "It takes the 
eyes of love to see angels," concluded the ar- 
chaeologist. " Natural savages may be noble, but 
effete races are not, and such most of the Eastern 
peoples seem to me. However, I may be wrong, 
or at least narrow; toleration is the great lesson 
of travel." 

After a number of such discussions, which 
were listened to by all, the company returned by 
general consent to more specific topics — plans, 
principally, for future journeys. These had but a 
melancholy interest for me, who had not the re- 
motest hope of realizing any of them, until the 
conversation became once more general in outlin- 
ing an ideal rapid journey around the world. This 
whirled me past Honolulu palm trees and cra- 
ters, amid Japanese cherry-blossoms and wistaria, 
along the Great Wall of China, through Canton 

[ 21 ] 



The Observations of 

gardens and bazaars, into Calcutta palaces and 
Delhi temples, by dahabeah in Egypt and camel 
in Syria, until I caught my breath once more in 
the midst of the Mediterranean. 

But the most valuable part of the evening, and 
to me the most enjoyable, if satisfaction is to be 
measured by what one remembers longest, was 
the concluding half-hour, when every member of 
the group, quite unconsciously I am sure, fell to 
felicitating every other member on the success of 
the evening, the value of travel, and the pleasure 
and profit of thus discussing it. 

I had, myself, experienced vicariously some 
of the delights of filling in the blank spaces on 
the map of the world with picturesque scenes and 
animated figures. I had noted with interest how 
the habit of observation seemed to lead inevit- 
ably to comparison, and that to generalization 
and conclusion. It had been no small satisfaction 
to learn how adequately the human frame and 
mind had met and withstood the severer expe- 
riences of the more daring — how small, after all, 
were the world's greatest difficulties and dangers 
to the unconquerable spirit. But it was most grat- 
ifying of all to realize that the general experi- 
ence had resulted not in distrust, but in belief in 
the fundamental kindliness, if not goodness, of 

[ « ] 



Professor Maturin 

general human nature; and in a firm convidtion 
that the world as a whole was visibly advancing 
in material, mental, and moral well-being. 

I had, naturally, never questioned the charm 
of travel as a recreation, but this evening gave 
me a new sense of its superior value as experi- 
ence and education. I knew, of course, that travel 
required no ordinary equipment of perception, 
knowledge, and judgment — of sensitiveness to 
impressions, with material to compare and abil- 
ity to value; that indifferent travel would serve 
only, as Rousseau said of indifferent reading, "to 
make presumptuous ignoramuses." But, although 
I had long believed that the observant and 
thoughtful home-keeping man might attain an 
understanding of himself and even of his nation, 
I came now to doubt that there was any means 
other than foreign travel for developing a realiza- 
tion of what is really fundamental to the general 
human spirit. 

In voicing to Professor Maturin my gratitude 
for the pleasure and profit of the evening, I found 
that he had observed me growing a trifle stale, 
and had designedly administered this meeting as 
a remedy. He expressed his opinion that I was 
already out of danger, judging from my evident 
appreciation, with Shakespeare, that "a good 

[ n ] 



Professor Maturin 

traveller is something at the latter end of a din- 
ner." And he beamed on me as mellowly as the 
moon when, at parting, I expressed my intention 
of continuing the medicine, homoeopathically, 
through books of travel, until my wonted tone 
was entirely restored. The whole prescription 
worked such wonders as a tonic that I strongly 
recommend it to others. 



[ *4] 



I 



III 

Foreign Travel at Home 

THANK you," said Professor M aturin, lay- 
ing aside the manuscript he had been read- 
ing me, in order to test its appeal, — "I thank 
you. I am only afraid that you are too generous. 
But, in any case, I am very grateful, and I hope 
that you will allow me to be at your service 
during the remainder of the evening. Do I not 
see you looking somewhat dispirited again? Are 
you not negle&ing your mental hygiene?" and, 
leaning forward from his circle of lamplight, 
he peered at me anxiously. 

I replied with one affirmative for both que- 
ries, but pleaded misfortune rather than fault. I 
knew that I was in serious need of variety, but 
I had found that the specific he had recom- 
mended — the atmosphere of foreign travel — 
no longer satisfied the demand. On the contrary, 
it aggravated my distemper, by adding to an 
already overpowering sense of monotony an 
impossible desire to fly to the uttermost parts of 
the earth. Books of travel and my friends' discus- 
sions of their coming journeys merely increased 
my distress. 

[*5 1 



The Observations of 

"So-o?" said Professor Maturin. "So-o-o?" 
leaning back in his huge leather chair, and put- 
ting his finger and thumb tips together. "Well, 
I suspected as much, and I fear that I am at least 
partly to blame for your condition. I prescribed 
a remedy that you have come to find worse than 
the disease, and, apparently, you have come at 
the same time to a new realization of Steven- 
son's saying that 'books are all very well in their 
way, but they are a mighty bloodless substitute 
for life' — not that I would be disrespectful to 
my best friends," and he smiled at the well- 
filled shelves which extend around his admira- 
ble library. 

"You will not think me unsympathetic when 
I say that I have been waiting for this symp- 
tom," he continued. "It is an important part of 
your cure. Some day I will explain to you my 
entire system of mental hygiene, but there is not 
time for that to-night, nor are you quite ready for 
it until you act upon my next and final recom- 
mendation. 

"You will remember that Emerson said, 'Our 
first journeys discover to us the indifference of 
places. The truest visions, the best spectacles I 
have seen, I might have had at home.' He did not 
himself practice his preachment, but that does 

[ *<> ] 



Professor Maturin 

not invalidate it. Kant, however, I believe, never 
travelled more than forty miles from Konigs- 
berg; and Sainte-Beuve for fifty years seldom left 
Paris. What, of course, one wants is not to sub- 
ject himself to the miscellaneous and often dis- 
tracting impacts of foreign travel, but to realize 
what essential elements he needs, where to find, 
and how to apply them. As one of our poets has 
put it: 

Who journeys far may lack the seeing eye: 

Stay, thou, and know what wonders round thee lie. 

"At one time in my life I travelled continu- 
ally. But now that I am older and wiser, I know 
that I can find practically everything I want here 
at home. At different times I want an almost 
infinite variety of things, but they are all here 
in New York. This city is the true cosmopo- 
lis: eighty nations are represented in its public 
schools; four-fifths of the parents of its citizens 
came from the ends of the earth; there are more 
than a million Germans; more than a million 
Irish; more, and vastly more fortunate Hebrews 
than in all Palestine; and so on — you know the 
figures. 

"Now, I need not insist that what is most 
important in foreign travel is not the novel sen- 
sations to which it gives rise, — the sense of a 

[27 ] 



The Observations of 

different climate, the flavor of new dishes, the 
fragrance of strange flowers, the sound of unfa- 
miliar music, even the sight of ancient buildings 
or famous pictures — pleasurable and profitable 
as all of these are; and, fortunately, most of them 
may be enjoyed here, dire&ly or indire&ly. The 
fundamental value of travel is in the realization 
that it gives of ways of feeling, thinking, and 
a&ing, other than our own; and these, along with 
many of their outward manifestations, our new 
Americans bring with them. 

"Thus, for example, if you are weary of the 
physical and mental traits of a land where all 
things are yet new, you may find the inscruta- 
ble calm of the immemorial East in Chinatown, 
where life flows as it did before Confucius. The 
ceremonial prescribed by Moses is still carried 
out here in many synagogues, and I can intro- 
duce you to more than one turbaned swami who 
will talk like Buddha. Unfortunately, our best 
illustration of the rigid solidity of the Egyptian 
spirit vanished when the old Tombs prison was 
torn down, but there is still the obelisk in the 
Park; and if you read Rossetti's poem in the 
midst of the New York Historical Society's As- 
syrian marbles, you will surely feel yourself in 
ancient Nineveh. 

[28] 



Professor Maturin 

"If material crudities or social unrest distress 
you, you have but to reopen your Aeschylus or 
your Cicero to recall the balanced strength and 
fineness of Greece, the early law and order of 
Rome. Our nearest approaches to Greek archi- 
tecture are perhaps the porticoes of the Sub-Trea- 
sury and the Columbia Library, or the choragic 
Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Riverside 
Drive. But from time to time the local Greeks 
revive their ancient games and ena6t their classic 
dramas — for particulars, see their newspaper, At- 
lantis, if you read modern Greek. As for Rome, 
High Bridge might fitly stand on the Campagna, 
or Washington Arch by the Forum; and for both, 
the Metropolitan Museum is full of casts of 
sculpture and of actual remains, from the Etrus- 
can chariot to whole walls from Pompeii. 

" Would you reap anew the fruits of the Teu- 
tonic invasion, you need only observe how it has 
brought force and endurance, solidity and crea- 
ture comfort, family affection and social senti- 
ment, good humor and good sense, to New York, 
as it did to Rome. The city would not be itself, 
without its delicatessen shops or its Christmas 
trees; much less without German scholarship or 
German music — Wagner and Beethoven hav- 
ing become ours even more than Berlin's. 

[ *9] 



The Observations of 

"Or, if you prefer oil to butter, — that is, are 
Latin rather than Teutonic in temper, — you may 
cultivate your mood by a morning with the tower 
of Madison Square Garden, which is a copy of 
the Giralda at Seville, and an afternoon in the 
new Hispanic Museum in Audubon Park. For 
mediaeval Italy you need but read your Dante 
in the Church of the Pauiist Fathers. For the Re- 
naissance, as for the Gothic, you may study the 
architecture of any one of a score of our public 
buildings, or the sculpture and painting in the 
Metropolitan Museum. Rome itself has now no 
more Italian citizens than New York, and it hears 
far less Italian music. While as for French music, 
French art, French cookery, and French amenity 
— we have appropriated them as thoroughly as 
we have the name Lafayette. Our rich men imi- 
tate French chateaux; the rest of us bless or re- 
vile the French invention of the apartment house. 

"Or, if you hold rather to the Anglo-Saxon 
temper: the English satisfaction in the serious, 
the solid, the useful; the English habit of accu- 
mulation, experiment, and certain conclusion; 
and the English ideals of physical and mental 
health and exercise — these traits and their tan- 
gible results are happily still so native to us that 
they can in no sense be considered foreign. 

[3° ] 



Professor Maturin 

" But even should your need or desire be for 
the mere sensations of foreign travel, these also 
may be had in New York. You may taste strange 
dishes and hear strange music in more foreign 
cafes in New York than in any other city in the 
world. In the local shop of the Bosnian-Herze- 
govinian tobacco monopoly you may smoke a 
water-pipe, calling it hookah, chibouque, or nar- 
gileh, according to the place in which you would 
like to be. You may eat real spaghetti and see 
marionettes enact the story of Roland on Mac- 
dougal Street. You need go no farther east than 
the East Side to buy Damascus inlaid metals, 
or Chinese medallion ware, or Japanese flowered 
playing-cards. It is possible, even, to become an 
importer in a small way, by buying for five dol- 
lars, on Allen Street, Russian brasses that cost 
seven dollars and fifty cents when transported to 
Twenty-second Street, or ten dollars and sev- 
enty-five cents when they arrive on Fifth Avenue. 
You may hear the service of the Greek Catholic 
Church, celebrated by an archbishop, in a cathe- 
dral on Ninety-seventh Street. Bohemians, Syr- 
ians, and even Egyptians have made whole sec- 
tions of the city practically their own, so far as 
manners and customs are concerned. Nearly one 
hundred newspapers and periodicals are pub- 

[ 3' ] 



The Observations of 

lished in New York in more than a score of for- 
eign tongues. Perhaps you would care to read a 
New York daily that is printed in Arabic?" 

Rising, Professor Maturin drew from a drawer 
and held before me a copy of Kawkab Amerika, 
a goodly-sized sheet, in strange chara&ers, but 
with a pictured heading eloquent to all. There 
I saw the desert, with mosques to the right, and 
pyramids and Sphinx to the left. Between were 
hosts of desert-dwellers, on foot, on horseback, 
on camel, but all gazing and pointing to the cen- 
tral sky, where appeared a radiant vision of our 
harbor statue of Liberty Enlightening the World. 

"And it is no mirage to them," said Professor 
Maturin, after a pause, "and that is the best of 
it all to me. The strangeness of these newcomers 
is, indeed, refreshing, but I like better to think 
of them as most of them really are, or soon will 
be — the most genuine of Americans. They are 
so through choice and, often, hard endeavor; 
you and I, perhaps, only through accident. You 
know the fundamental loyalty of the typical 
German-American. The Spanish press of the city 
was staunchly American during our last war. 
The Turkish periodicals applauded our demon- 
strations against the Porte; and Hungarians, Ser- 
vians, Syrians, and Persians have each formally 

[ 3* ] 



Professor Maturin 

organized for the purpose of influencing their 
fatherlands to become more like the land of their 
adoption. 

"And so we come to the most valuable of all 
the ends of travel — the greater realization and 
appreciation of home. We return from other na- 
tions with relief — for there are few American 
emigrants — to a yet new land of fertile soil and 
mineral wealth; to a people varied, yet homo- 
geneous, energetic, aggressive, ingenious, and 
self-reliant. We face, it is true, problems such as 
the world has never known before, but with un- 
precedented belief in idealism, morality, order, 
and education; not apprehensive of danger, but 
quick in recognizing and decisive in meeting 
it. Our successes in transportation, in architec- 
ture, and in material well-being in general; our 
achievement of the welfare of the whole people 
over that of se&ion or class, of equality of oppor- 
tunity for each and of benevolence toward all, 
have already taught the whole world new lessons 
of peace, tolerance, and faith in the average man. 
Nor do I see any reason, as we become more and 
more a new race, blended of many, why our good 
fortunes should not continue and increase. Any- 
thing else would falsify our trust in a wide and 
a wise humanity — and that is unthinkable. 

[33 ] 



Professor Maturin 

"But, I beg your pardon," said Professor Ma- 
turin, as I rose to say good-night, "I did not 
mean to take the stump; and yet, I believe that 
it is good sometimes to give utterance to these 
things which all of us feel. Nothing revives the 
vigor of one's spirit like the conscious realization 
of being in harmony with fundamental law." 



[34] 



I 



IV 

Country Life 

HAVE never seen my friend Professor Ma- 
turin in better health or spirits than he was 
when I met him the other evening at the Athe- 
naeum. He had just finished dinner, and indi- 
cated that he was in the mood for talk by ordering 
two of the Cuban vegueras that he keeps in a pri- 
vate box at the club, for use on special occasions. 

" I am just back from the best vacation I have 
ever had," he began. " I have been spending a 
month with a friend up the river, at a most de- 
lightful place, built and planted about fifty years 
ago by his father, from memories of the villas 
about Florence, where he once lived. The house 
has window balconies, a tower, a loggia opening 
west and south, and a red-flagged terrace with a 
stone balustrade, all complete. Below this slopes 
a wide lawn, then many flowering shrubs, and 
finally splendid groupings of trees between and 
over which you may see the river, here at its 
widest. The hills beyond and the highlands to the 
north complete the picture. 

"After breakfasting alone, at any time my 
fancy chose, according to the happy custom of the 

[ 35 ] 



The Observations of 

house, I spent whole mornings on the terrace, 
looking through the aisles of ancient oaks at the 
river, or at the heaped-up summer clouds as they 
drifted south. I have heard the Hudson called 
epic, because of its breadth and power. It is no 
less so in its incidental embellishments of sun- 
light and shadow. I often watched it from its 
morning silver, through all shades of refle&ed 
blue, until at night it looked like a texture of 
royal purple into which the moonlight and the 
stars were being woven. The clouds were better 
than any Alpine mountains. Their mass and light 
and dark were as definite, and they had other 
clouds about their peaks and oceans of vapor at 
their feet. In addition they changed constantly, 
and turned to gold and opal at evening. 

"At luncheon, or shortly before, I met my host 
and hostess. If before, we often strolled through 
a catalpa avenue to a semicircular stone seat 
overlooking the river, or along a pine walk to a 
lookout toward the highlands, or past an orchard 
back of the house to a certain sunset hill, for the 
widest view of all, where we could see the river 
for twenty miles. Sometimes the hostess led us 
to sections which she called 'nature's gardens/ 
because of the wild flowers, of which she was 
particularly fond. 

[36] 



Professor Maturin 

"About such flowers I knew so little that I 
would have been tempted to revive my ancient 
botany had I not a good while ago learned the 
necessity of limiting the number of one's avoca- 
tions and of resisting the temptation to rob them 
of time, to spend on this new thing and that. I felt 
the same way about the trees, which, I was told, 
represented every indigenous variety. I knew by 
name only oak and elm, beech and maple, and 
a few others; but I made the most of the com- 
pensations of my ignorance, by noting, with all 
the freshness of discovery, the charade ristic angle 
or curve of the different boughs, the varied form, 
texture, and characteristic movement of branch 
and leaf, the innumerable greens of the foliage, 
and their infinite modulations under light and 
shade. 

"I am sure that we often know too much to 
get the full value of our impressions. For a long 
time painters could not represent trees because 
they remembered what each leaf was like; 
Claude painted his landscapes from what he 
knew, rather than what he saw, Constable from 
what he loved, Turner from what he imagined. 
It was not until the Barbizon men lived in the 
forest that Rousseau caught the a&ual form and 
Corot the fragrance of nature, and Monet could 

[37] 



The Observations of 

paint true light and air. It is said that the most in- 
teresting writing is done by generally cultivated 
people concerning subje&s that are new to them. 
The greatest enjoyment of nature often comes 
in the same way. It is quite possible to be 'con- 
noisseured out of one's senses.' 

"At our luncheons the talk was always de- 
lightful, for my friend's ample fortune gives him 
both occupation enough to keep him contem- 
porary, and leisure enough to allow him to be 
Coleridge's ideal man of letters, reaping only 
the choicest and most spontaneous growths of a 
richly cultivated mind. After luncheon we usu- 
ally sat awhile in the large, although simple, 
conservatory, which adjoined the dining-room — 
if the word 'simple ' may properly be applied to 
a place where orange and lemon trees attained 
their natural size, roses bloomed by the hun- 
dred, and where we picked ripe pomegranates 
and figs for our dessert. This, too, was due to the 
genius of the founder of the house, whose works 
my friend delighted to honor and cherish. 

"When we separated again I usually retired 
to my room for a book and a nap, which lasted 
I know not how long, one of the charms of the 
place being that artificial timepieces were ab- 
sent, or, at least, invisible and inaudible, every- 

[ 38 ] 



Professor Maturin 

thing, apparently, being regulated by the sun. 
This source of light and heat usually led me 
in the late afternoon to the loggia to watch the 
earliest anticipations of the evening glow, and 
to listen to an orchestra of mocking-birds in an 
open-air cage, accompanied by their wild neigh- 
bors, of whom there seemed to be multitudes. 
English sparrows were ruthlessly banished, but 
every other sort of bird was protected, with the 
reward of the almost familiar companionship 
of orioles, cardinals, wrens, and humming-birds, 
and the constant song of warbler, thrush, and 
meadow-lark. In nothing, I think, is the coun- 
try more delightfully different from the town 
than in its sounds. Even the winds and the rains 
sound different there. 

" My friend has so long lived his life with na- 
ture that it has become the theme of his chief 
study. He outlined this to me one evening when 
the rain caused us to transfer our coffee from the 
terrace to the conservatory, where his ideas 'be- 
came permanently associated with the impres- 
sions of azalea bloom and jasmine fragrance 
which I acquired at the same time. 

" 4 I am slowly accumulating,' he said, 'fads 
and ideas for a history of the relations between 
nature and man in the United States. The con- 

[39] 



The Observations of 

ditions have been peculiar, and the results more 
than ordinarily interesting. Nowhere else, for ex- 
ample, have people possessing all the arts of 
civilization made their homes in the midst of 
absolutely primitive nature. With such a begin- 
ning, three thousand years of history have here 
been epitomized in three hundred. Nature as an 
enemy was soon conquered, and nowhere else 
has she afterward shown herself more friendly 
in surface fertility and underground resources. 
Our vast and relatively undiversified territory 
has brought men of the coast, the mountains, and 
the plains; of the rugged North and the languor- 
ous South, into closer and more constant con- 
tact than ever before. And to this unparalleled 
interplay we have welcomed myriads from every 
other climate and condition on the earth, and 
have set up for the whole theories of government 
which allow almost perfect freedom to all racial, 
local, and individual traits. 

"'I intend to deal but briefly with the physi- 
cal results of such inhabitation. The wisdom of 
experience is beginning to check the perhaps nat- 
ural tendency to spoil ruthlessly the conquered 
forest; and even the most materially minded are 
beginning to a6t toward the universal mother no 
more harshly than they would toward a captive 

[40] 



Professor Maturin 

or slave whose usefulness is increased by consid- 
erate treatment. 

"'The peculiar relations between nature and 
the human spirit in the United States, however, 
seem to me worthy of extended study. Thus, it is 
undoubtedly because of our unique environment, 
that so just an observer as Emerson found Ameri- 
can perceptions keener than any he met with else- 
where. Our poets have certainly recorded other 
and more varied aspects of nature than their Eng- 
lish brethren, who in comparison seem to deal 
chiefly with the "common or garden variety." 
Nothing is more mistaken than to consider Bry- 
ant a kind of inferior Wordsworth. There is more 
truth in the remark that Wordsworth himself 
was not primarily a nature poet, since nature was 
to him chiefly the source of certain stimuli to the 
mental life, which was his fundamental interest. 
Bryant not only feels this stimulus, along with 
nature's suggestive and representative quali- 
ties, and its physical benefits; but he also appre- 
hends nature as an independent world of phy- 
sical life and order, of which man is a citizen 
so far as he is a creature, and of which he may 
be a ruler so far as his mind works in harmony 
with natural law, and partakes of the power 
behind it. 

[41 ] 



The Observations of 

"'This asped of nature was not, I believe, ap- 
prehended by Wordsworth at all. He at least gave 
no utterance to it. Similarly, in the treatment of 
the water-world, in which English poets have usu- 
ally excelled, the English critic Henley has shown 
how Longfellow, through a simple self-forge tful- 
ness in his impressions, found eternal beauties 
hitherto unnoticed. Emerson's nature-teaching is 
fairly well known, but the depth and breadth of 
Whitman's sympathy for land and sea has yet 
to be generally appreciated; and these poets are 
only a few of many examples. 

"'American painting, too, has found itself in 
landscape ; our sculpture and music have drawn 
inspiration from aboriginal life; and our natural 
science is second to none in its careful, accurate, 
and tireless study. 

"'The special field in which we may learn from 
the older world is in the employment of nature 
as the material of art; and for this with our ad- 
vance in wealth and leisure, we are now ready. 
Roman, Italian, and English examples have al- 
ready been followed in making real for us some 
of Poe's visions of cultivated landscape; and I 
am daily expe&ing those delightful intellectual 
and aesthetic results which have always come 
when men, wearied with the cultivation of cities, 

[42 ] 



Professor Maturin 

retire to the contrasting peace, simplicity, and 
beauty of nature.' 

"There were, of course," continued Professor 
Maturin, " many other general ideas in my friend's 
system, and he has accumulated a vast hoard of 
particular facts to illustrate them. The last aspect 
of the subject, however, continued to interest me 
most; for I was experiencing hourly the truth of 
what he said concerning the thaumaturgic, heal- 
ing power of nature. I never felt such gentle and 
cumulative refreshment in my life. The varied 
sensations of travel, which is perhaps the favorite 
form of recreation, merely whip the jaded spirit 
into new activity. But these peaceful, natural 
scenes and sounds allow the senses to relax, and 
the mind to renew its texture and recover its tone. 
As Browning puts it, 

my soul 
Smoothed itself out y a long-cramped scroll. 

I have experienced a real re-creation." 

"Therefore," concluded Professor Maturin, as 
we finished our cigars, " you must not be surprised 
if, within the next few weeks, I compose a pas- 
toral symphony, or become a new Theocritus, 
or — what is less unlikely — retire to a villa, as 
Horace did." 

[43] 



V 

Food for Thought 

I WAS just ordering dinner at the Athenaeum 
when Professor Maturin entered the room and 
peered about over his spectacles in search of a 
congenial corner. Happily for me, his glance 
encountered mine, and his smile accepted my 
invitation. I settled myself for an hour of rare 
conversation. 

"And what are you planning to have*?" he 
queried. I passed him the order I was signing, but 
noticed, as he read it, first surprise, then incre- 
dulity, and finally sorrow in his expression. 

" My friend, my friend," he said, mournfully 
shaking his head, "and you a literary man!" 

"Won't you, then, order for me instead?" I 
responded, cancelling the slip, outwardly meek, 
but inwardly rejoicing that my friend's energy 
had created a situation which his kindliness 
would require him to explain at length. 

"In the cause of the advancement of learning, 
sir, I will!" he replied. And taking a new blank, 
he began to write from the bottom upward, re- 
marking: "In the first place, I always feel, in order 
that a dinner may have unity and consistency, 

[44] 



Professor Maturin 

it should be planned like a poem, from the end 
toward the beginning; all the more, since there 
is no chance for revision. There," he resumed, 
finishing, "I think that will do, as simple, nour- 
ishing, and suggestive." 

And he read: "Oysters, with a few Platonic 
olives, for the sake of Dr. Holmes and criticism; 
a bit of tenderloin, in memory of Mary Lamb's 
beefsteak pudding; asparagus, which, according 
to Charles Lamb, inspires gentle thoughts; cauli- 
flower, which Dr. Johnson preferred to all other 
flowers; Vergil's salad; apple pie, according to 
Henry Ward Beecher's recipe, with a bit of Dean 
Swift's cheese; and, finally, a little coffee. I have 
considerably increased my usual ration in order 
that you may not miss what the French call 'the 
sensation of satiety.' 

"I find it difficult," sighed Professor Maturin, 
as he passed the order to an attendant and leaned 
back in his chair, "to absolve men of letters from 
what has been called the crime of unintelligent 
eating. Of all men their need of and their oppor- 
tunity for wisdom in such matters is the greatest. 
And yet you have Gray wondering at his ail- 
ments and his melancholia, when he was eating 
chiefly marmalade and pastry, taking no exercise, 
and dosing himself with tar water and sage tea. 

[45] 



The Observations of 

" Shelley did scarcely better in a more enlight- 
ened age. Byron's habitual flesh-reducing mix- 
ture, potatoes and vinegar, is chemically indiges- 
tible. And Thoreau literally consumed himself 
in following and advocating a diet which so pre- 
pared him for tuberculosis that living half his 
time in the open air could not prevent it. 

"The opposite extreme, which is yet more 
common, is even less attractive in men of genius. 
Who likes to remember that Spenser and Milton 
had gout, or that Goethe drank in his time fifty 
thousand bottles of wine 4 ? As for Pepys, what 
do you think of having one's 'only mayde' dress 
such a home dinner as this, copied from his 
'Diary:' 'A fricassee of rabbits and chickens, a 
leg of mutton, three carps, a side of lamb, a dish 
of roasted pigeons, four lobsters, three tarts, a 
lamprey pie, a dish of anchovies, and good wine 
of several sorts ' *? No wonder that his better quali- 
ties are obscured in our memories of him. 

"Philosophers, men of a&ion, and, interest- 
ingly enough, men of the world, have usually set 
a better example. 'They that sup with Plato,' 
said Aelianus, 'are not sick or out of temper 
the next day.' Socrates, Epicurus, and Kant, all 
preached and practiced judgment and restraint. 
Horace and Catullus insisted that their pam- 

[46] 



Professor Maturin 

pered guests should bring their luxuries with 
them. Montaigne highly disapproved of elabo- 
rate cooking, and Pope refused to dine with Lady 
Suffolk so late in the day as four. 

"Then there is that admirable story of Cin- 
cinnatus, whom the venal senators knew they 
could not bribe after they found him preparing 
his own dinner of turnips. It is quite in keeping 
that King Alfred should have burned the cakes, 
and that Napoleon should have spilled the ome- 
let; and it is to Lady Cromwell's credit that she 
would not allow the Prote&or oranges that cost 
a groat apiece. 

"Even aside from health and morals, a man's 
relation to food is always significant. Who can 
think of Tasso without remembering that he 
loved sweetmeats'? Is there not literary sugges- 
tion in the fad: that Vergil loved garlic and 
Horace hated it; that Horace preferred his Fa- 
lernian and his Sabine farm to the dinners and 
Persian apparatus of Maecenas, but that Cicero 
loved to dine with Lucullus and bought himself 
a seven-thousand-dollar dinner table? 

"Is it not illuminating to know that the fa- 
vorite food of Burns was oat-cake, that of Byron 
truffles'? De Quincey's reports that Wordsworth 
used the same knife for cutting butter and the 

[47 ] 



The Observations of 

pages of books; and that Scott, when Words- 
worth's guest, repaired secretly to an inn for 
chops and ale — these are not gossip, but literary 
criticism. It is as surely interpretative of Dickens 
to know that he disliked Italian cookery as that 
he was fond of playing an accordeon. 

" Carlyle's pessimism is usually attributed to 
indigestion. It ought, I think, to be as usual to 
explain Emerson's optimism by a digestion that 
could cope successfully with his favorite pie. We 
habitually associate tea and coffee with Johnson 
and Balzac, and their work. Should we not as 
often remember that Milton produced 'Paradise 
Lost' on coffee, and 'Paradise Regained' on tea? 
Of course, such physical criticism of literature 
must be limited by other judgments. I can well 
agree with Dr. Gould that many writers show 
the effects of eye-strain, and it is difficult to 
upset the diagnosis of anaemia in Hawthorne; 
but I hesitate to think, with Dr. Conan Doyle, 
that Shakespeare had locomotor ataxia." 

"Why did you associate oysters with criti- 
cism*? "I inquired, as Professor Maturin paused. 

"Do you not recall," he replied, "the Auto- 
crat's remark that literary reputations are largely 
a matter of administering oysters in the form of 
suppers, to gentlemen connected with criticism? 

[48 ] 



Professor Maturin 

Veuillot similarly claimed that men were elected 
to the French Academy chiefly because they 
gave good dinners. Sydney Smith applied the 
principle to religion when he said, 4 The way to 
deal with fanatics is not to reason with them, but 
to ask them to dinner.' On the other hand, Swift 
used deliberately to test men's tempers by offer- 
ing them bad wine." 

"And did Plato like olives?" I continued. 

" He often made a meal of nothing else," was 
the reply. 

"And what was Vergil's salad?" It arrived at 
that moment. 

"It is made of cheese and parsley, with a bit 
of garlic, rue, and coriander, salt, oil, and vinegar. 
A little of it is, I think, very pleasing. I much 
prefer it to Sydney Smith's. I never understood 
how he could write 4 Fate cannot harm me, I have 
dined to-day ' about a salad made of potatoes. For 
the truly esoteric do&rine you must read John 
Evelyn's ' Discourse of Sallets.' 

" Indeed, I am inclined, on the whole, to think 
that Sydney Smith was what Carlyle called 'a 
blethering blellum,' when he wrote about food, 
as he so often did. It was perfectly proper for him 
to express a desire to experience American can- 
vasbacks, and to be glad that he was not born 

[49] 



The Observations of 

before tea; but to say that roast pheasant and 
bread sauce was the source of the most elevated 
pleasure in life, and that his idea of heaven was 
eating pate defois gras to the sound of trumpets 
— that was both posing and trifling with serious 
subjects. Charles Lamb's comments on roast pig 
and frogs' legs, and his kindred table talk, are 
much more genuine, and, of course, charming; 
but even they scarcely touch the deeper aspe&s 
of the subject. 

"Thackeray had all of Lamb's appreciation 
of food and, I think, something more. He en- 
joyed his own and accepted others' idiosyncrasies 
of taste, — witness his treating boys to apricot 
omelet, which he hated, — but his plea for sim- 
pler and more varied dinners, for more hospital- 
ity and less ostentation, indicates, I think, that 
he realized at least something of the profound 
moral and social significance of food. 

"This, as you know, is one of my hobbies, and 
I unconsciously add it to my other criteria of 
judgment in my reading. That Scott invented a 
venison pasty, Dickens a sandwich, Webster a 
clam chowder, and Henry Clay a stew is inter- 
esting; just as it is that Buckle was discriminate 
and Heine indiscriminate in choosing tea. But 
it is far more significant that Dr. Johnson con- 

[SO] 



Professor Maturin 

sidered writing a cook-book, and that Dumas' 
last work adually was such a volume of more 
than a thousand pages. 

"That is the kind of thing we need: sound 
do&rine from influential writers, but it is not easy 
to get. The intemperate use of food, which is al- 
ways with us, causes many to turn with prejudice 
from the whole subject. Here, as elsewhere, con- 
servatism often opposes the good. You know, 
for example, how long the clergy decried the use 
of forks; and I never cease to regret that the man 
who was opened-minded enough to introduce 
umbrellas into England should have been furi- 
ously opposed to tea. 

" Many writers, too, treat the subject fancifully, 
without regard to its inherent truths — witness 
the conventional praise of the indigestible turtle. 
Often those who intend well lack knowledge: 
Pythagoras made it a principle of morality to ab- 
stain from beans, an almost perfect food; the ideal 
diet of Plato's republic,barley pudding and bread, 
does not contain the elements necessary to sus- 
tain life properly. Democritus inaugurated the 
still repeated heresy that any food that is pleas- 
ant is wholesome ; and even Dr. Johnson defended 
his doubtful practice of eating whenever he was 
hungry, without regard to regularity. For all these 

[51 ] 



The Observations of 

reasons and many others I hold it, in this enlight- 
ened age, doubly the responsibility of intelligent 
men, and particularly of those who influence 
popular opinion, to acquire a sound knowledge 
of such matters and to do all that they can to 
disseminate it." 

"You have previously convinced me of this," 
I replied, "but I have not found it easy to attain 
to such knowledge." 

"The important thing," continued my men- 
tor, "is a conscious attitude of serious attention 
to contemporary investigations in the field. One 
should welcome every item of reliable infor- 
mation, observe much, and, whenever possible, 
experiment. Of course, our special problem, as 
persons of sedentary habit, is to obtain a large 
quantity of blood and brain nutriment without 
taxing an organism which gets comparatively 
little physical exercise. The problem is not sim- 
ple, indeed it is very complex, but it can be so 
completely handled by knowledge and care that 
the process of solving it adds another satisfaction 
to life. 

"Cheerfulness, by the way, is an invaluable 
agent in the whole business. I know of a physi- 
cian who cured a persistent dyspeptic by requir- 
ing him to tell at least one amusing story at each 

[ 52 ] 



Professor Maturin 

meal. We are apt to forget that the taking of 
food is not only a necessity, but also one of our 
most constant sources of pleasure. 

Unless some sweetness at the bottom lie, 
Who cares for all the crinkling of the pie ? 

Sometimes, even, as Voltaire says, 'the superflu- 
ous is a very necessary thing/ 

"That high thinking does not require that all 
our living be plain, is admirably illustrated by 
this quotation from Mr. Howells's reminiscence 
of the 'very plain' suppers which followed the 
meetings of Longfellow's memorable Dante Club. 
They consisted of 'a cold turkey, or a haunch 
of venison, or some braces of grouse, or a plate 
of quails, with a deep bowl of salad, and the sym- 
pathetic companionship of those elect vintages 
which Longfellow loved and chose with the in- 
spiration of affection.' 

" From such pabulum came our most poetic 
version of the world's most spiritual poet." 



[ S3 ] 



VI 

Beside the Sea 

HEAR I NG that Professor Maturin was back 
again in town, I made an early call, and 
found him hale and hearty, bleached and bronzed, 
and even more than usually clear-eyed. 

"Behold me returned from a summer beside 
the sea," he said in greeting. " I see that you note 
the visible indications of my sea-change. When- 
ever you are in the mood for a tide of talk, I 
believe I can convince you that my experience 
was as rich as its outward signs are strange." I re- 
minded him that there was never any time like 
the present, and added such further solicitation 
that he began at once. 

"You know the locality of my preference: a 
place frequented just enough not to be lonely, 
a region of bays and sounds as well as of open 
sea; where the waves batter at the cliffs only to re- 
turn their spoil to the sands — where, in short, the 
unity of the element appears in endless variety. 
My favorite station was a dune-guarded beach of 
sand, which swept on either hand into pebbles 
and stones, until lost in the rocks heaped below 
the boulder cliffs that formed the horns of a cres- 
cent cove. 

[ 54 ] 



Professor Maturin 

"At first I spent unmeasured hours looking 
over the expanse toward the terminal haze, and 
watching, as far out as I could, the great ridges 
rolling with the motion of wind and tide and 
open sea. At the farthest, they looked like moun- 
tain ranges, one behind the other; nearer, they 
were dark green hills with grayish summits. 
Nearer yet, one could see them reflect the sky, 
and sometimes the shore. Nearest of all, there 
was a visible upgathering before the rush, plunge, 
and sweep on the beach — all endlessly repeated 
and infinitely varied. 

"The same perpetual repetition and variety 
appeared in the surge, as it flooded up the sands 
in a wide curve of plash, ripple, and foam ; paused, 
retreated slowly, and then swept out, only to join 
with the drag of the bottom in opposing an in- 
coming wave, until it rose high, plunged forward, 
and broke into the churning shallows, which were 
quickly covered by the main body of the wave 
as it flooded in. 

"The outermost margin of almost every surge 
lingered long enough to make its record in a 
tiny ridge of sand and to reflect the light and 
color of the sky; then it sank into the sand, leav- 
ing a burden of pebbles and shells, stubble and 
seaweed, and the like. This flotsam and jetsam is 

[ 55 ] 



The Observations of 

so constantly swept up, drawn back, and tossed 
to and fro that I was not surprised to find the 
sands, under a microscope, composed entirely 
of such materials worn to powder. Behind me, 
the sea and the wind had heaped the sand into 
hills, that shore grasses burrowed into and held 
together. To left and right, the cliffs, although 
high and precipitous, were so scarred and worn 
by storm and wave that they looked almost pri- 
meval. Their tops were bared by the winds and 
corroded by the alternate a&ion of heat and 
moisture; their granite sides were seamed and 
stained by the surge; and their feet were en- 
cumbered with fragments of their own wreckage 
that must have thundered down like avalanches. 
These rocks, whether flung forward in reefs like 
sculptured waves, or heaped like ruins, were nat- 
urally of a rich old rose, but they were often also 
gray with barnacles, or green with sea growths, 
and they showed even deeper in tone when sub- 
merged beneath the many pools that similarly 
mellowed and enriched the coloring of pebbles, 
shells, and weeds. 

" My observation of the almost infinitely va- 
ried flora and fauna of the sea was, naturally, but 
superficial. Yet I saw many delightful plant and 
flower-like forms of dark or light green, yellow, 

[ 56] 



Professor Maturin 

brown, and red, all ceaselessly retinted by the 
ever-changing sky lights, and the reflection and 
refra&ion of the water. Sometimes they rioted in 
thick tangles among the rocks; again they softly 
swayed, outspread toward the rising and falling 
surface. 

"The fauna I preferred to look at under water, 
for, on the whole, I found them grotesque, al- 
though I was bound to admire their adjustment 
to their environment, and to resped them as 
possible images of our remote ancestors. I was 
especially impressed with the constant warfare 
beneath the surface, as exemplified in the regular 
manoeuvring of whole armies of tiny fish, only to 
have company after company routed by the dash 
and gulp of some larger enemy. 

"The bottom of the sea I have never seen, save 
through the glass-bottomed boats of the Bermu- 
das, but some day I hope for a diver's view of the 
depths. It is easy to understand why the imagina- 
tion of the poets should be stimulated by the idea 
of that cool, dim quietness, disturbed only by the 
swaying of verdure and the movement of great 
fish; of the richness of color, and the long, slow 
passage of time, measured only by the up-build- 
ing of the coral. 

"The open sea is, of course, familiar to us all, 

[57 ] 



The Observations of 

and yet its apparent boundlessness and immeas- 
urable depth are ever new as the most immense 
thing in our knowledge — the sky belonging 
rather to the realm of the intangible. Mid-ocean 
always makes me feel the infinite continuity of 
time, the omnipresence of natural law, and a stim- 
ulus to greater harmony with its workings. No- 
where else are my 'cosmic emotions' so stirred. 
One gets something of the same impression on 
land wherever one can mark the ceaseless rising, 
pausing, and falling of the tide, under the myste- 
rious governance of the moon. I am more than 
fond of the regular, gentle quality of the tide's 
behavior, even if it does sometimes seem stealthy 
in its creeping toward and around the half-oblivi- 
ous observer. 

" I cannot similarly commend the behavior of 
the wind, when it opposes the tide in bluster on 
the sea or pushes it in tumult on the shore. The 
tide is a serene and responsible world power; the 
wind almost always performs its indispensable 
functions with all the eccentricity of genius. A 
breeze is positively attractive when ruffling the 
surface or sweeping spray from the wave-crests, 
and the wind itself is unobjectionable when it 
consistently urges the waves in one direction. But 
when it plays havoc with the clouds, or ' ruffians 

[ 5«] 



Professor Maturin 

on the enchafed flood ' until it fastens upon the 
elu&ant sea a behavior as bad and a reputation 
worse than its own — then I am by no means 
for it. 

"It was my fortune this summer to witness sev- 
eral storms of such intensity that I became im- 
pressed with the routine of their procedure. The 
sea — grown dark, heavy, and oily — is first flicked 
and spotted, and then strangely lighted, all over, 
with the dash of rain and hail; the sun is made 
lurid, then shrouded, and then hidden by a me- 
tallic sky; the clouds grow gloomy and sullen 
until they are shattered by peals of thunder and 
riven by livid lightnings. Then the wind rushes, 
howls, and roars; tearing and hurtling the clouds 
and tumbling and lashing the waves until they 
leap and plunge, reel and writhe, flinging up 
hissing foam and whirling spray 'shrewd with 
salt.' It is undoubtedly glorious — but I like 
it best when it is over, leaving the torn waves 
heavy with foam as a reminder, by contrast, of 
the quieter beauties of a calmer sea. 

"Even the sky, the most beautiful thing that 
we know, seems to multiply its beauty by the sea. 
One day I saw night gradually lapsing into dawn. 
The sea glimmered as though the stars had come 
down, and then flashed until, in the language 

[ 59 ] 



The Observations of 

of Swinburne, it blossomed rosily and flowered 
in the sun, floating all fiery upon the burning 
water. I saw many long mornings of sapphire 
sky and lapis-lazuli sea, and many noons when 
the waves glittered until their spray became dia- 
monds. Through long afternoons the sea reflected 
sky and clouds in every shade of silver, blue, and 
green. The amber fire of the setting sun not only 
made the heavens splendid, but poured both di- 
re 6t and reflected rays upon the sea until nothing 
but the idea of a stupendous opal could suggest 
its coloring. Later, all would fade until land was 
lost, the sea grew deep and dark, and the only 
light was the foam and the reflections of the stars. 
With the moon, all grew new again. Rising low 
and large, it threw a broad, undulating pathway 
as golden as that of the sun was silver. Where 
it reached the shore its glitter extended along the 
sur£ gleaming over the sands, and twinkling 
wherever spray or dew had fallen. Later yet, as 
the moon quietly sank, the general illumination 
grew dim, until obscurity covered land and sea 
alike, and the sea seemed to merge into infinite 
space. 

" Then, as at no other time, one hears the sound 
of the sea. I spent many hours listening, endeav- 
oring to analyze it, and to interpret its efFe6t 

[60] 



Professor Maturin 

Its continuity and variety are perhaps its most 
striking characteristics. It is so ceaseless that it 
suggests the everlasting. Within this perpetuity 
it rises and sinks, leaps and falls, gathers and dis- 
solves; it sweeps and rolls, sways and trembles; 
it seems to approach and withdraw, to flow and 
overflow; it sounds and resounds, repeats and 
changes. And well it may do all this and more, 
considering that its source is a countless num- 
ber and variety of waves, surging, breaking, and 
seething among themselves; rushing, plashing, 
lapping on the shore, chafing sand, rattling peb- 
bles, grating shells, grinding rocks: — all of the 
resulting sound being constantly varied as well as 
augmented by breeze, wind, and storm; by the 
configuration and reverberating qualities of the 
shore; and by the varying acoustic properties of 
the atmosphere. 

"Analysis being thus nearly baffled, I turned 
to analogy, and found the sound like the rumble 
of thunder, the crash of falling rocks, the rush of 
catara&s; like the quiver of green branches and 
the rustle of dry leaves; like the bellow and roar 
of animals; the clash of arms and armor. It is very 
much like music in its elements of monotone, 
chord, cadence, melody, and harmony; its rela- 
tions of continuity, rhythm, repetition, and vari- 

[ 6' ] 



The Observations of 

ation; in its sounds as of cymbal, tympani, bell, 
trumpet, viol, harp, or organ; its suggestions of 
symphony or chorale. It is, perhaps, most of all 
like the human voice, half audible in whisper or 
murmur; inarticulate in sigh or sob; muffled in 
mutter or moan; hushed in lullaby or croon; 
blended in a unison of song or supplication; con- 
fused in the hum and rumor, the call and shout, 
the clamor or tumult of great crowds. 

" From such prosing of my own I turned to 
the record and interpretation of sea music by the 
poets. From them I collected an alphabetical list 
of characterizations, and by the time that I had 
accumulated about one hundred I fell so into 
their spirit that I, myself, produced the follow- 
ing — as yet unnamed — poetic fragment: 

Always attuned, its anthem billowing, breaking is blown; 
Ceaseless, its cadenced complaining deepens to dirge or to drone; 
Ever its eloquent echo falling, again flies free, 
Till it gathers and grows in grandeur like heaverfs high har- 
mony. 

"I stopped there, because 'kissing' was the 
next striking epithet and that seemed rather too 
fanciful, although the Swinburnian spirit aroused 
by the composition yearned, so to speak, to go 
on to 'mightily murmured the main' and 'sono- 
rously sounded the sibilant sea.' 

[62] 



Professor Maturin 

" Seriously,however,the problem of adequately 
recording and interpreting the aspects of the 
sea is as fascinating as it is difficult. The best 
media are, of course, sculpture for its form and 
substance, painting for its light and color, music 
for its movement and sound. Poetry and prose 
reflect something of all of these, poetry more sug- 
gestively, prose more accurately. The poets, 
however, turn so quickly from actual aspects and 
impressions to their mental and emotional ac- 
companiments, that they seem devoted rather to 
exploiting their own poetic gifts than the rich- 
ness of their subject. Their observation is usually 
sensitive and keen, but it is quickly checked and 
often distorted by the action of fancy. Accuracy 
of expression is frequently disturbed by sponta- 
neous or deliberate search for the picturesque or 
figurative utterance, made so easy by the enor- 
mous vocabulary that the sea has impressed upon 
our language. Poets who are gifted with rhyth- 
mical or harmonic power habitually exceed in 
those directions also. Happily there are some sea 
poems that are true as well as beautiful, but it 
seems quite too bad that such masters as Shelley, 
Arnold, and Emerson should intellectualize, and 
Coleridge, Rossetti, and Poe should dream, about 
the sea until they make it appear merely a min- 

[ 63 ] 



Professor Maturin 

ister to their moods rather than the immense, 
unspoiled, cosmic thing it really is." 

"Man overboard?" said Professor Maturin 
suddenly, as he halted abruptly before me in the 
perambulation he had begun after rising to secure 
the manuscript of his poetic fragment, and had 
slowly continued ever since back and forth along 
the long rug that he calls his "beat" — "I have 
flowed in good earnest. Your submerged appear- 
ance indicates that you agree with me that my 
experience was well-nigh overwhelming." 

Accepting his helping hand, I pulled myself 
out of the depths of the huge leather chair into 
which I had sunk, and expressed my genuine 
appreciation by saying, along with my good- 
nights, "The next time we meet, I should like 
just such another dip." 



[64 ] 



VII 

Christmas 

IT is always possible to divine something of 
the state of Professor Maturin's mind from 
the order or the congestion of his books and pa- 
pers. When, therefore, the other day, I found him 
behind a perfect rampart of volumes bristling 
with paper-markers, I knew that he was loading 
with some new knowledge or other, and medi- 
tated how I might draw his fire. But he antici- 
pated my efforts by sallying from his fortifica- 
tion, dishevelled but beaming, with the salvo: 

Go d rest you, merry gentleman ; 
Let nothing you dismay ! — 

What will you give for the Christmas spirit*?" 
he continued. "I have been seeking it, seasona- 
bly, and believe that I have found it." 

I capitulated immediately, and we sat down by 
the fire for a parley, which he began promptly. 

"The Christmas spirit appears to be inherent 
in human nature, in the climatic change from 
summer seed-time, through autumn harvest, to 
hearty winter relaxation and cheer over the gar- 
nered fruits of husbandry or art. In the South it be- 
gan as the winter feast of Saturn, celebrated with 

[65 ] 



The Observations of 

masking and gifts. In the North it was Odin's, 
with log fires and feasting. Then the early Chris- 
tian fathers chose it for celebrating their Foun- 
der's new teaching of peace and good-will. 

" Gradually all of this blended into the most 
interesting mingling of the material and the 
spiritual that we have in all our manners and 
customs. The traditions of the shepherds and the 
star, the nativity, and the wise men of the East 
became the centre of the celebration. But the me- 
diaeval popularity of Macrobius's book on the 
Saturnalia perpetuated its carnival and games, 
its candles and garlands, and its giving of gifts, 
especially to children. The descending Teutons 
brought their wassail and their tree ceremonials. 
Germany added Saint Nicholas, Santa Claus,and 
the filling of stockings. France seems to have 
furnished the carols. England elaborated the sea- 
son's food and drink, and America contributed 
the turkey. 

"With the growth of church and state the day 
became one of pomp and circumstance. West- 
minster Abbey was consecrated on Christmas in 
1065, and William was crowned there the next 
Christmas. Other episcopal and royal functions 
followed, until more was spent on this season 
than in all the year beside. There were special 

[ 66 ] 



Professor Maturin 

buildings, elaborate pageants elaborately set, and 
feasts of five hundred dishes with sixty oxen for 
one course and eight-hundred-pound plum pud- 
dings. There were jousts at which three hun- 
dred spears were broken, and the presentation 
of as many as thirty plays. Earlier, the plays 
were religious; later, Shakespeare provided the 
court play for Christmas, 1601, and Ben Jonson 
for 1616. Milton's 'Comus' was presented at 
Ludlow Castle during the Christmas season of 

"The universities and the inns of court were 
likewise keen for plays and for 'the boar's head 
served with minstrelsy.' The aristocracy and gen- 
try kept open house, for sometimes as many as 
three hundred persons. Sir Roger de Coverley 
sent a string of puddings and a pack of cards to 
every poor family in the parish; and rich dece- 
dents left Christmas dinners and gifts to the poor. 
The peasantry entered heartily into seasonable 
mummery and games, dances and songs, so in- 
dustriously thumbing the many early printed 
books of carols that almost none of them re- 
main. 

"Everywhere indoor leisure and the season- 
able mood gave rise to all sorts and conditions 
of legendary lore — of spirits, of trees that flower 

[ 67 ] 



The Observations of 

and animals that speak on Christmas eve, and 
of weather wisdom, like : 

If Christmasse day on fry day be, 
The frost of wynter harde shal be. 

" From the beginning, the spirit of the cele- 
bration had to wage war with the flesh. The fa- 
thers of the church never ceased to remonstrate 
that festivity endangered the solemnity of the 
season. There were constant failures to remem- 
ber the peaceful character of the feast. The Danes 
fell on King Alfred while he was celebrating 
Christmas in 878, and William the Conqueror 
got into York on Christmas in 1069 by sending 
in spies with good-will gifts of food. The me- 
diaeval Lords of Misrule, originally established 
to control festivity, became themselves uncon- 
trolled, and had to be abolished." 

"Even though they made some very good 
laws," I interrupted, "against eating two din- 
ners in one day, and kissing without leave." 

"The Pilgrim fathers at Plymouth frowned on 
current excesses by working on Christmas day 
in 1620 and by later prohibiting its celebration. 
Cromwell's Parliament sat every Christmas day 
from 1644 to 1656, and sermonized and legislated 
against the celebration as a carnal feast, order- 
ing churches shut, shops open, and decorations 

[68] 



Professor Maturin 

down. But this was too extreme, and the people 
smashed the shop windows and put up more 
evergreens than the Lord Mayor's men could 
burn; and Evelyn delighted in being arrested for 
going to church on Christmas in 1657. In five 
years all was so changed that Pepys could for 
once combine preaching and pra&ice, by hearing 
a Christmas sermon on joyousness and having 
plum pudding and mince pie for dinner. 

"From the beginning, too, the spirit of bene- 
volence has had its difficulties. Watchmen left 
verses at doors, wanderers sang carols, and chil- 
dren chanted, * I 've got a little pocket to put a 
penny in,' until such suggestion to benevolence 
became a little too definite, and it was legislated 
against. In 1668 Pepys says tipping 'cost me 
much money this Christmas already, and will 
do more.' Half a century later Swift writes: • By 
the Lord Harry, I shall be done with Christ- 
mas boxes. The rogues at the coffee house have 
raised their tax, every one giving a crown, and I 
gave mine for shame; besides a great many half- 
crowns, to great men's porters, etc' 

"Of other giving Swift wri tes : ' M aking agree- 
able presents . . . [is] an affair as delicate as most 
in the course of life,' and he never fails to cau- 
tion Stella against a new danger, that of losing 

[69 ] 



The Observations of 

her money in Christmas gaming. Concerning this 
custom Walpole wrote on twelfth-day in 1752: 
'His Majesty, according to annual custom, of- 
fered myrrh, frankincense, and a small bit of 
gold; and, at night, in commemoration of the 
three kings or wise men, the King and royal 
family played at hazard ... his most sacred 
Majesty won three guineas, and his R. H. the 
duke, three thousand four hundred pounds.' 

"Concerning gifts, Walpole instances the 
charming presents devised for a little girl of ten 
by the Duchess of Suffolk and Lord Chetwynd, 
aged seventy-six and eighty, respectively; and 
he prescribes the theory, ' Pray remember not to 
ruin yourself in presents. A very slight gift of a 
guinea or two obliges as much, is more fashion- 
able, and not a moment sooner forgotten than 
a magnificent one; and then you may cheaply 
oblige the more persons.'" 

"Such being the earlier history and tradition of 
the festival, what should be its modern spirit?" 
I inquired. 

"For that, too," continued Professor Maturin, 
"there is no lack of leading. Charles Lamb is 
frankly for 'the good old munching system . . . 
ingens gloria apple-pa sty-orum' and does not hesi- 
tate to prescribe for Christmas, 1800, 'snipes ex- 

[ 70 ] 



Professor Maturin 

actly at nine, punch at ten, with argument; dif- 
ference of opinion expected about eleven, perfect 
unanimity, with some haziness and dimness, be- 
fore twelve.' 

"Thomas Love Peacock makes his Rev. Dr. 
Opimian say, about i860: 'I think much of 
Christmas and all its associations. I like the idea 
of the yule-log. I like the festoons of holly on the 
walls and windows; the dance under the mistle- 
toe; the gigantic sausage; the baron of beef; the 
vast globe of plum pudding; the tapping of the 
old October; the inexhaustible bowl of punch. 
... I like the idea of what has gone, and I can 
still enjoy the reality of what remains.' 

44 Dr. Opimian further prescribes for the sea- 
son such merry tales as his contemporary Tn- 
goldsby Legends' provide in the distinguished 
career, but inglorious end, of 'The Spectre of 
Tappington,' which nightly made away with the 
trousers of the guest who occupied the haunted 
room at Christmas. All of these same hearty 
traditions are perpetuated by Fenimore Cooper 
in his description of Christmas festivity in 'The 
Pioneers.' " 

"Does not Washington Irving," I asked, "have 
an important place in the tradition 6 ?" 

" Precisely so," continued Professor Maturin; 

[ 71 1 



The Observations of 

"it was reserved for him, from his knowledge of 
Dutch and English customs, to make a new se- 
lection and recombination of Christmas ideals so 
appealing as to have set the standard ever since. 
His half-dozen Christmas papers dwell, with his 
characteristic love of the past, on the superior 
honesty, kindliness, and joy of the old holiday 
customs. No refinement of elegance can replace, 
he maintains, the family gatherings, the perfect- 
ing of sympathies, the realization of mutual de- 
pendence, and the increase of mutual affe&ion, 
instinct in the ancient hospitality. To his own 
question as to the worth of Christmas observ- 
ances, he gives the most characteristic answer in 
his philosophy — there is plenty of wisdom in 
the world, but we need more sound pleasure to 
beguile care and increase benevolence and good 
humor. 

"It was this ethical intention to reestablish 
the old tradition of kindliness that Dickens fol- 
lowed, with the result of again endearing the 
season, as Mr. Ho wells has said, 4 to the whole 
English-speaking world, with a wider and deeper 
hold than it had ever had before . . . the chief 
agency in universalizing the great Christmas 
holiday as we now have it.' 

"There is no need to remind any one how 

[ 72 ] 



Professor Maturin 

the whole baker's dozen of Dickens's 'Christmas 
Stories' delightfully champion hard work and 
good cheer, sympathy and benevolence, affec- 
tion and self-sacrifice, and even the softening 
effe&s of suffering and sorrow — sometimes by 
dire&ly illustrating these blessings, again by pic- 
turing the misery of their opposites. His satires 
at pretended benevolence and commercial greed, 
and his championship of the common man, an- 
swer in advance all later criticisms concerning 
the burden and the cost of Christmas and cur- 
rent complaints over popular ingratitude. 

"'I have great faith in the poor,' Dickens 
once wrote. 'To the best of my ability I always 
endeavour to present them in a favourable light 
to the rich; and I shall never cease, I hope, until 
I die, to advocate their being made as happy and 
as wise as the circumstances of their condition, 
in its utmost improvement, will admit.' 

"Thackeray called Dickens's 'Christmas Sto- 
ries' a national benefit, and to any man or wo- 
man who reads them a personal kindness; and 
Thackeray, too, served the season with Christ- 
mas pieces of sympathy, humor, and pantomime, 
and with his famous onslaught on pretentious 
misanthropy. You recall how the ttmes slated 
one of his Christmas stories as worthless on the 

[ 73 ] 



Professor Maturin 

very day that the publishers asked for a sec- 
ond edition; and how Thackeray, in the preface 
to the second edition, — 'An Essay on Thunder 
and Small Beer,' — made such delightful fun 
of the review's futility, its absurd supercilious- 
ness, its inflated language, and its false figures 
of speech, that snarling criticism learned at least 
a temporary lesson. 

"Thackeray waged his war differently from 
Dickens, but, on the whole, I have found no- 
thing more compa&ly adequate on the Christ- 
mas spirit than Thackeray's 

/ wish you healthy and love, and mirth, 
As Jits the solemn Christmas-tide, 

unless it be the conclusion to old Nicholas Bre- 
ton's ' Fantasticks,' written in 1626: Tn brief I 
thus conclude it : I hold it a memory of Heav- 
en's love and the world's peace, the mirth of the 
honest and the meeting of the friendly. Fare- 
well.'" 



[74] 



VIII 

The Sovran Herb 

"^VT^OU are come most opportunely," said 
JL Professor Maturin, as I was shown into his 
study. "Just in time for coffee and a cigar and 
some good talk with my friend the Vicar of All 
Souls." And he presented me to a gentleman 
whose clerical dress graced a more than ordinarily 
handsome figure. His chair and Professor Ma- 
turing being on opposite sides of the fireplace, 
I drew mine between them, and noted, during 
the pouring of the coffee, the fine seriousness 
and serenity of the clergyman's face. He made no 
remark, however, until he said, "None, I thank 
you," slightly raising his hand when I proffered 
the cigars that Professor Maturin had passed. But, 
after I had made my selection and had returned 
the box to Professor Maturin, the Vicar recon- 
sidered and joined us. 

"Smoking rests me greatly when I am tired," 
he continued, after we had lighted, "but I am 
thinking of giving it up. I am moved to do so by 
such statements as this from my afternoon paper " 
— and extracting a clipping from his pocket 
and adjusting his eye-glasses, he read: "Medical 

[ 75 ] 



The Observations of 

opinion and statistics unite to prove that smok- 
ing irritates the respiratory system, decreases lung 
capacity, prevents the purification of the blood, 
depresses the nerve centres, checks heart action, 
impairs digestion, retards growth, reduces weight, 
strength, and endurance ; restricts the therapeutic 
effects of medicines, delays the healing of wounds, 
and impairs, if it does not destroy, mental life — 
all of which effects, inevitable although perhaps 
hidden for years, would make tobacco one of the 
gravest dangers of the century even if it did not 
harm the eyes, excite thirst, and induce intem- 
perance." 

" If we believed that," said Professor Maturin, 
getting out of his chair, " we should not only aban- 
don tobacco instantly, but organize a crusade for 
its total prohibition. But my medical friends in- 
form me that the statistics are still quite too scanty 
to generalize from, and that there have been no 
scientific experiments, except a few which have 
apparently proved that smoking aids digestion. 

"As for personal opinion, it has long been 
equally violent on both sides of the question. 
Here," he continued, opening a volume of 
pamphlets which he had drawn from one of his 
bookcases, "is a three-century-old illustration," 
and he read: "There cannot be a more base, and 

[ 76 ] 



Professor Maturin 

yet hurtful corruption in a country than this bar- 
barous and beastly habit borrowed from wild 
Indians, a habit unnatural, urgent, expensive, un- 
clean — loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, 
harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs — 
and in the black, stinking fume thereof nearest 
resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit 
that is bottomless." 

"That," resumed Professor Maturin, "is the 
personal opinion of James the First of England 
in the 'Counterblaste to Tobacco,' which he fol- 
lowed up by imposing a duty of six shillings 
eightpence a pound in addition to the modest 
tuppence previously demanded. 

" But here also is a counterblast to King James's, 
by one of the most learned physicians of his time, 
William Barclay. He proclaims tobacco to be a 
heavenly panacea of wondrous curative power, 
the fuel of life divinely sent to a cold, phleg- 
matic land. He characterizes all other opinions as 
4 raving lies, forged by scurvy, lewd, unlearned 
leeches.'" As Professor Maturin put the book up 
and returned to his chair he concluded: "I can- 
not feel that personal opinion on the subject to- 
day has any sounder basis." 

" Possibly not," replied the Vicar, after a short 
pause, — "possibly not. But can we not conclude 

[ 77] 



The Observations of 

something from the standing of the witnesses'? 
Is there not some significance in the cordial af- 
filiation between the weed and alcohol? How 
shall we answer Horace Greeley's offer to give 
two white blackbirds for one blackguard who 
did not use tobacco*?" 

"The collocation of Bacchus and tobacco is, 
of course, historic," responded Professor Matu- 
rin, " but, on the other hand, as a substitute for 
alcohol, tobacco is certainly on the side of tem- 
perance. If, moreover, it is to be judged by the 
company it has kept, we must reckon with the 
practical advocacy of many good men and true 
from Milton to Emerson, as well as of all the 
smoking roysterers from Ben Jonson to Burns." 

" I must admit that I can recall only Sir Isaac 
Newton and Horace Walpole, Dr. Holmes and 
Mr. Swinburne, in specific opposition," said the 
Vicar, "although I venture to think that the 
Greeks would have opposed it." 

"And the Romans have approved it," rejoined 
Professor Maturin. " There is an immense mass 
of literature on both sides. I agree neither with 
King James nor with his counterblasters. But I 
do believe with Cowper that smoking quickens 
thought, with Lowell that it mellows conversa- 
tion, with Dr. Johnson that it induces tranquil- 

[78 ] 



Professor Maturin 

lity, and with Moliere that it prompts benevo- 
lence." 

"But Dr. Holmes held that it muddled 
thought," retorted the Vicar, "and it certainly 
silenced two eloquent talkers on that occasion 
when Carlyle and Emerson smoked together 
a whole evening with never a word. I fear that 
only too often it relaxes divine discontent into 
ill-timed resignation, turns thought to reverie, 
and lulls the stir of aciion into dreams." 

"That, surely, is the defecl: of its quality," ad- 
mitted Professor Maturin; "yet it did not cloud 
Kant's thought, dim Milton's poetic vision, or 
relax the will of Frederick the Great or of Bis- 
marck. It may, perhaps, have somewhat clouded 
Lowell, dimmed Thackeray, and relaxed Lamb. 
But who can tell? We cannot determine the ideal 
combination of the strenuous and the contem- 
plative life until we solve the personal equation." 

"Very true, very true," acknowledged the 
Vicar ; " therefore, let us begin again. I s not smok- 
ing an essentially selfish, or at least an anti-social, 
habit?" 

"It does, I believe," responded Professor Ma- 
turin, "incline one to prefer the company of other 
smokers, and to reduce the number even of those 
that one desires at a time. However, if that be 

[ 79 ] 



The Observations of 

the case, we must commend it for inciting such 
conversation as the present, such intimate games 
as chess, and such profitable solitude as that with 
books. It was no accidental combination that 
made Buckle say he never regretted the money 
spent for books or tobacco. King Alfred and his 
ancient candle are succeeded by the modern 
scholar, measuring time by the rings on the ash 
of his cigar, or by the succession of his pipes. Is 
not tobacco, therefore, an encourager of domes- 
ticity? What makes one more content to stay at 
home?" 

" Or away from home ? " smiled the clergyman, 
consulting his watch. "As for domesticity, you 
know the saying that 'tobacco is woman's only 
successful rival;' and you recall those shocking 
lines of Kipling's. I think I never knew a woman 
who was not, secretly, at least, distressed by the 
odor of tobacco — no matter what the younger 
ones may say to the contrary. Remember poor 
Mrs. Carlyle!" 

"There were two Mrs. Carlyles," chuckled 
Professor Maturin, "and you must restrict your 
sympathies to Jane, for the dowager and son 
Thomas used to smoke their pipes together. Of 
the feminine reaction to tobacco, however, I am 
no judge, although I do recall George Sand's 

[80 ] 



Professor Maturin 

pipe, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's snuff, and 
the cigarettes of contemporary empresses and 
suffragettes. Have I not heard that women phy- 
sicians prescribe the latter — cigarettes, I mean 
— for feminine nervousness?" 

"I have no doubt whatever about cigarettes," 
replied the Vicar. " I would unhesitatingly ban- 
ish them as the bane of the young and the fool- 
ish. Snuff, also, we are done with, and happily, 
for it was the most slovenly form of an indulgence 
which is unclean at its best." Here the Vicar 
flicked some imaginary ashes from his waistcoat. 
" We can never be too grateful that our contem- 
porary Sir Joshua Reynoldses are not snuffy. But 
I must confess that a good Havana now and 
then" — and the Vicar spoke slower and slower, 
until his sentence became an eloquent silence as 
he drew upon his cigar, expelled the smoke, and 
watched it fade away. 

No one spoke for some moments,and as neither 
the Vicar nor Professor Maturin seemed inclined 
to do so, I ventured a brief panegyric upon pipes, 
preferably briars — their intimate, companiona- 
ble, cumulative qualities; the preference for them 
on the part of Spenser and Tennyson, Locke 
and Fielding, Lamb and Lowell; and the varied 
range of their offering as illustrated by Cowper's 

[ 81 ] 



The Observations of 

Virginia, Thackeray's Canaster, and Aldrich's 
Latakia. 

" Nor may we forget Southey's ' Elegy on a 
Quid,'" added Professor Maturin. "Seriously, 
however," he continued, "smoke is beautiful to 
the eye, pleasing in flavor and odor, smooth to 
the tactile and comforting to the temperature 
sense, the occasion of a tranquil muscular rhythm 
— the last not the least important. Thus it grati- 
fies six senses at once — no wonder its use has 
become universal, intimately incorporated into 
national life east and west, south and north." 

"Alas, too intimately," sighed the Vicar. "It 
costs half a billion a year. It is another artifi- 
cial habit that the world finds it difficult if not 
impossible to do without. So few have Newton's 
fear of adding to the number of their necessities. 
Think how Thackeray missed his cigar and how 
Prescott, when but one a day was allowed to 
him, ranged Paris over for the very largest pro- 
curable! Did not Stevenson write, 'Most men 
eat occasionally, but what they really live on is 
tobacco"? Did not Charles Lamb say he toiled 
after tobacco as other men toiled after virtue? 
Was not his struggle to stop smoking as severe 
as De Quincey's with opium?" 

"I suspect," replied Professor Maturin, "that 

[82 ] 



Professor Maturin 

both Lamb and De Quincey made the literary 
most of their sufferings, and as for force of habit, 
whocan tell ? I am sure that I never smoke merely 
from habit, but always because of a conscious 
desire for the kind of satisfaction that smoking 
gives." 

"Yes, yes," sighed the Vicar, finishing his ci- 
gar, "but I am truly distressed about the matter. 
I wish that your scientists would make a com- 
prehensive and conclusive investigation into the 
effects of tobacco, as they have recently done into 
those of alcohol. Is it a stimulant or a sedative? 
What is its effect on perception, comprehension, 
association, combination, on general efficiency, 
on general health*? Is it a poison or a panacea?" 

"It is certainly time that we knew surely," re- 
plied Professor Maturin gravely, "and it is our 
obligation to urge our scientific friends to inform 
us. Until then, however, I must confess that my 
own experience chiefly corroborates Carlyle's 
judgment that 'sedative, gently clarifying to- 
bacco smoke, with the obligation to a minimum 
of speech, surely gives human intellect and in- 
sight the best chance they can have.' The gen- 
eral situation is well summed up by old Burton, 
when he says: 'Tobacco, divine, rare, superex- 
cellent tobacco, which goes far beyond all the 

[ 83 ] 



Professor Maturin 

panaceas, potable gold, and philosopher's stones, 
. . . but as it is commonly abused by most men, 
which take it as tinkers do ale, 't is a plague, a 
mischief, a violent purger of goods, lands, health, 
hellish, devilish and damned tobacco.' Have an- 
other cigar, dominie." 

"Until we really know about tobacco," con- 
cluded the Vicar, firmly closing the box, "we, at 
least, will practice moderation." 



[84] 



IX 

Mens Faces 

"OOME in, come in," said Professor Ma- 
V^Jl turin, as I was shown to the door of his 
study. "I am very well, indeed, thank you — 
'pursuing the even terror of my way,' as the 
proofreader said. I have just been trying," he 
continued, taking some papers from his writing- 
table, "to triangulate Shakespeare's nose accord- 
ing to Sir Francis Galton's plan for classifying 
profiles. But it appears that the shape of Shake- 
speare's nose is as uncertain as the spelling of his 
name. Here in the Ely House portrait it is long 
and rounded, in the Droeshout it is rather flat- 
tened, in the Zoust quite irregular, in the Trinity 
Church monument a very vile nose indeed. You 
may observe, moreover, among these plates, a 
similar disagreement concerning every one of his 
features, although the general expression is like 
enough. All of which was renewing in my mind, 
as you came in, certain observations concerning 
men's faces. 

" If you were to go over with me my collec- 
tion of literary portraits here, — I have about two 
thousand, — you would note immense differences 

[ 85 ] 



The Observations of 

in line and mass, light and shade, depth and del- 
icacy. The prints are from all sorts and condi- 
tions of statues, paintings, engravings, and pho- 
tographs; taken at all sorts of angles from profile 
to full face, and at various elevations. The a&ual 
color and texture of the originals, to say nothing 
of the artists' ideas of them, would make the vari- 
ation much greater. And yet I believe you will 
agree that, in spite of all detractions, almost every 
plate gives a surprisingly expressive and indi- 
vidual charade rization." 

Professor Maturin waited in silence while I 
looked over enough of the portraits to convince 
myself of the justice of his observation. Then 
he continued: "While possessed of that idea I 
amused myself by picking out doubles. Here are 
some surprising similarities in the faces of most dis- 
similar persons — Tolstoy and Verlaine, Bishop 
Heber and Byron, Ronsard and Lincoln. All of 
these portraits of Spenser make him look like 
Mephistopheles, and Seneca here is the exa6t 
counterpart of our friend the sporting editor. In 
general, however, a resemblance in appearance 
— like that, for example, between Shakespeare 
and Calderon — represents a considerable corre- 
spondence in nature. Sometimes this may be at- 
tributed to identity of race and nationality, as in 

[ 86] 



Professor Maturin 

the cases of Renan and Sainte-Beuve, Taine and 
Zola. But most often the resemblance shows true 
to temperament and character in spite of race, 
time, and circumstance. Notice, for example, 
these prints of Horace and Herrick, Burger and 
Burns, Heine and Chopin, Maurice Jokai and 
George W. Cable. Such resemblances hold even 
between very unusual faces, such as those of Uh- 
land and Goldsmith, and there are sometimes 
triplets like Fouque, Hoffmann, and Poe. It ap- 
pears, decidedly, that appearances are not decep- 
tive. 

"Personality cannot, of course, entirely tran- 
scend all rules: Dumas pere shows unequivocally 
his negroid blood; you can generalize concern- 
ing the bent Russian head, the arched Spanish 
brows, the full German nose, the common irregu- 
larity of English features. Accident broke Thack- 
eray's nose, cost Camoens an eye, and at least 
threatened De Foe's ears. Distress left its mark 
on Cervantes and on Poe. Lamb said, you remem- 
ber, that Coleridge looked like an archangel, a 
little damaged. Pope and De Ouincey show their 
imperfed health. The posture and the pose of 
occupation leave traces, like the knitted brows 
of philosophers and men of action, the narrowed 
eyes of historians and explorers, the open nostril 

[87 j 



The Observations of 

of the naturalist, the worn mouth of the orator. 
But these are minor matters — the general ex- 
pression remains. 

"The character of this general expression is 
perhaps most determined by the size and shape 
of the head. These vary enormously — as one 
may see in the Hutton collection of masks at 
Princeton — all the way from the greatness of 
Thackeray's to the smallness of Byron's, from the 
shortness and breadth of Luther's to the narrow- 
ness and length of Lope de Vega's, from Dar- 
win's deep sloping dome to Scott's 'Peveril of 
the Peak.' 

"A single feature frequently dominates, like 
Sir Philip Sidney's 'imperial head with fair, large 
front,' or Jean Paul Richter's strangely bulging 
forehead. The eye is often the most striking fea- 
ture. Scott said, literally, that the eyes of Burns 
glowed; the same thing was said about Keats and 
Hawthorne. Scientists are notable for eager eyes, 
mystics for dreamy ones. I have noticed that styl- 
ists, like Flaubert, Catulle Mendes, d'Annunzio, 
John La Farge, and Charles Eliot Norton, are 
heavy-lidded. Large noses connote power, if we 
may judge from the Hebrews, the Greeks, and 
the Romans; from Dante and Savonarola, Words- 
worth and Newman. We have the testimony of 

[ 88] 



Professor Maturin 

Lowell that Emerson's nose was so large that it 
cast a shadow. Socrates and Plato, Herbert Spen- 
cer and Dr. Holmes, however, were but illy fa- 
vored in this respect. Satirists' noses are long, and, 
as we might expect, often pointed, — witness 
Erasmus, Swift, and Voltaire. 

"Mouths are only less expressive than eyes. 
Sterne's mouth shows him a satyr, De Quincey's 
marks him an imp. In general the mouths of au- 
thors, and of clergymen, too often show self-im- 
portance or complacency. Julius Caesar's square 
jaw and Bismarck's thick neck are also full of 
meaning, although such features and the always 
significant poise of the head are often obscured 
by the countless forms of ruff, band, stock, or col- 
lar that men have affected from time to time. 

"The hair and beard are even greater trans- 
formers. Personally, I like somewhat wayward 
hair such as Scott's, Hazlitt's, and Tennyson's. All 
red-haired writers from Ben Jonson to Bulwer- 
Lytton attract me, while I am repelled by By- 
ron's glossy and Shelley's silky hair. Many heads 
are improved by the thinning of their thatch, al- 
though Emerson's was not; some, like Irving's, 
are enhanced by a wig. But in general wigs are 
great levellers, — imagine Dr. Johnson in Addi- 
son's! Alexander Hamilton's queue makes a fine 

[ 89 ] 



The Observations of 

balance for his profile, and a tonsure is not al- 
ways unbecoming. One may say the same for 
beards: Fitzgerald always objected to Tennyson's, 
but Bryant and Longfellow and Ruskin were all 
bettered by theirs, the last immensely so. Free- 
man, however, rather overdid it, and Flaubert's 
walrus moustache was a monstrous thing in such 
a stylist. Baudelaire's beard and Swinburne's are 
to me much more shocking than anything in 
their verses. But the doctrine of beards is really 
very subtle. Mr. Henry James's removal of his 
apparently reacted upon his style. 

"After conspicuous single features, arrange- 
ment most influences expression, and it is sur- 
prising to note how irregular this is. Such corre- 
lation and symmetry as that of George Meredith 
is quite exceptional. There are disagreements in 
color even between eyes — one of Lamb's was 
hazel, the other gray. The eyes and brows of 
Chatterton, Balzac, and Douglas Jerrold are on 
a different plane, back of the rest of their fea- 
tures. The right side of Thoreau's face and of 
Whitman's is lower than the other, while the 
left side of Poe's face is smaller. Disproportion 
in mass is most frequent, the lower half of the 
face being often too large for the remainder. 
Alexander von Humboldt and Matthew Arnold 

[9°] 



Professor Maturin 

are the only examples I have noted of dispro- 
portionally large brows and eyes. The chins of 
Hegel, Gray, and Pater, on the other hand, are 
at least one size too large; the nose and mouth 
of Tyndall and Emerson are certainly two sizes 
too large; Hans Christian Andersen displays an 
even greater lack of harmony. Dr. Johnson com- 
bined a fine head and eyes with a coarse nose and 
mouth; Landor's mouth was as weak as his head 
was powerful. Goldsmith presented the extraor- 
dinary combination of a low, bulging forehead, 
with almost no head behind the ears, handsome 
eyes and nose, a swollen upper lip, and a reced- 
ing chin — all much pitted with smallpox. Gold- 
smith is a striking example, for in spite of his 
singularly unfortunate appearance, his intrinsic 
charm is yet obvious. 

"Thus, while the details of men's faces are a 
source of curious interest, their greatest signifi- 
cance is the way in which a general expression 
transpires through them. We are not in the least 
repelled by the ugliness of Aesop and Socrates, 
the ■ dumb-ox ' look of Thomas Aquinas, or what 
Edward Lear called 'Wordsworth's desire for 
milk appearance.' When Petrarch appears cheer- 
ful and Montaigne sad, Smollett mournful and 
Spinoza merry, we yet feel that there is more 

[91 ] 



The Observations of 

than meets the eye. I believe, Tennyson to the 
contrary notwithstanding, that a man's character 
is usually clear in his countenance ; here I take 
up at random Confucius and Calvin, Cicero and 
Franklin, Rabelais and Chaucer — who could 
misjudge them? It is as Hazlitt said — you get 
from a great number of details a general impres- 
sion which is true and well founded, although 
you may not be able to analyze or explain it." 

"It is certainly most interesting," I said, as Pro- 
fessor Maturin put his portraits into their cabinet. 
"I wonder why the subject has not been investi- 
gated more fully and scientifically." 

"It has been thought about a good deal," re- 
plied Professor Maturin, "ever since the Greeks. 
Renaissance rulers thought it of use in selecting 
their courtiers. Goethe kept a painter busy record- 
ing faces that interested him. About a century ago 
Lavater devoted a score of handsome folios, with 
splendid plates, to the study of faces, but his treat- 
ment was very desultory — discussions of 'deep, 
designing, envious villains as represented by Ra- 
phael/ and so on. Some of his successors went to 
the opposite extreme of deflniteness, concluding 
that long noses denote courage, high cheek-bones 
honesty, large lips sociability, and the like. There 
have been, however, various scientific studies, 

[92 ] 



Professor Maturin 

such as Darwin's on the expression of the emo- 
tions, Galton's composite photography, and Ber- 
tillon's accurate system of measurement and clas- 
sification. Yet for some reason the subject still re- 
mains one of those that bibliographers catalogue 
as merely 'curious.' I like to dip into it now and 
then because of its general human interest, and 
always find it a stimulus to freshness and direct- 
ness of observation; a caution, as Sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds said, against distrusting imagination and 
feeling in favor of 'narrow, partial, confined, ar- 
gumentative theories.'" 

I remained silent while Professor Maturin 
looked over his cases for a book, and then stood 
leafing through it, until he found his place, and 
said: "Hazlitt sums the matter up in his essay 'On 
the Knowledge of Charade r' with these words: 
'There are various ways of getting at a know- 
ledge of character — by looks, words, actions. The 
first of these, which seems the most superficial, is 
perhaps the safest, and least liable to deceive : . . . 
A man's look is the work of years; it is stamped 
on his countenance by the events of his whole 
life, nay more, by the hand of nature. . . . This 
sort of prima facie evidence shows what a man is, 
better than what he says or does.'" 

[93 ] 



A s 



X 

Mental Hygiene 
S the Vicar, the Physician, and I entered Pro- 



fessor Maturin's study, after dinner, the 
Vicar sank into his chair with a deep sigh. " Is 
it so bad as that?" queried Professor Maturin, as 
he passed the cigars. " I beg a general pardon," 
replied the Vicar. " To-day has quite tired me out, 
although I am just back from a vacation." The 
Physician gazed at him professionally for a mo- 
ment, and then said: "A clear case for the Book 
of Mental Hygiene." As we turned, expe&ant, 
Professor Maturin, after some hesitation, took a 
portfolio from his desk, saying: "The Physician 
refers to a colle&ion of memoranda, drawn from 
my experience and reading, during a series of 
years, but recently put into something like order. 
They are semi-personal in substance, and quite 
staccato in form, but I am very willing to read 
them if you will agree to stop me when you have 
had enough." Accepting our assent, he began: 

" Now that science can cause the Ethiopian to 
change his skin and the leopard his spots, — that 
is, can modify the color of rabbits and multiply 
the toes of guinea-pigs, or graft new chara&er- 

[94] 



Professor Maturin 

istics on cattle or on grain, — it is high time to 
take thought for the efficient and economic work- 
ing of that intelle&ual machinery which is not 
only the means to all such progress, but the fun- 
damental condition of our mental being. Even 
if we do not accept Professor Lankester's view 
that man has produced such a special state for 
himself that he must either acquire firmer hold 
of the conditions, or perish, we must agree with 
Professor James that the problem of access to 
different kinds of power is a practical issue of 
supreme importance. 

" Physical conditions, of course, are the basis of 
all mental hygiene. Whatever may be the rela- 
tion between body and mind, no one can doubt 
its intimacy. Many persons, like Wordsworth and 
Lowell, suffer physical prostration after mental 
exertion; nor does Dr. Johnson need to tell us 
that 'ill-health makes every one a scoundrel.' 
Habits of confinement or exercise mean so much 
that we might almost know from their work that 
Balzac and Poe wrote in closed rooms; but that 
Wordsworth and Browning composed in the open 
air, Burns and Scott on horseback, Swinburne 
while swimming. It is true that, as Roger Ascham 
said, 'walking alone into the field hath no token 
of courage in it,' and that the horsemanship com- 

[95 ] 



The Observations of 

mended by Erasmus is expensive ; but there are 
countless forms of physical exercise, some suit- 
able to each. George Sand set a standard of wis- 
dom in increasing her exercise when under espe- 
cial strain. Food and sleep also influence mental 
life tremendously. Whether we eat one simple 
meal a day with Kant, or many varied ones with 
Goethe, we must remember the laws of nutrition 
and Carlyle's warning that indigestion comprises 
all of the ills of life. 

"The criteria for sleep likewise are wholly 
individual so long as we do not drowse on other 
people's hearth-rugs like De Quincey; or, like 
Rossetti, entertain our callers by taking naps. 
Some think it impossible to get too much sleep. 
Kant limited his for the sake of soundness; he, 
moreover, carefully tranquillized his mind before 
going to bed, not by a total exclusion of ideas but 
by a selection. Some forms of analysis and com- 
bination appear to continue during sleep. Gray 
had a friend who made verses in his dreams, and 
Bancroft's bedtime problems were often solved 
when he awoke. The time to sleep and the time 
to wake must be left to individual instinct and 
social sanction. The doctrine of deliberate ris- 
ing — dear to Lamb and Hazlitt, Thackeray 
and Lowell — has recently been reinforced by 

[96] 



Professor Maturin 

a French savant's declaration that getting up 
quickly leads to madness. 

"Again, mental life is so conditioned by sen- 
sations that every man should ask himself Profes- 
sor Dowden's list of questions concerning them. 
What did not Tennyson owe to his hearing, Keats 
to his taste and smell? Has anything ever arTe&ed 
human character more than the present eye- 
mindedness due to printing and artificial light- 
ing? We have recently been shown the relation 
between thought and the jerks of the eye in read- 
ing, and even between pessimism and eye-strain. 
What might not be explained by nervous tension 
or arterial pressure, in Dr. Holmes's 'bulbous- 
headed men' or Donizetti's creative headaches. 
The very posture of the body is important in 
mental labor — many books are cramped from 
being bent over. Writers in bed have scientific 
endorsement for their approach to the horizon- 
tal. Yet, as this is hard on the eyes, a reclining- 
chair like Milton's seems better. But no habit 
should be too rigid. It is unwise to risk Kant's 
distress at the loss of the weather-vane he gazed 
at while pondering; and one doubts whether 
Schiller's odor of rotten apples, or Gautier's cat 
in his lap, or Marryat's lion-skin table were worth 
the trouble. 

[ 97 ] 



The Observations of 

"Accommodation must be practiced also with 
regard to youth and age. Whether through cellu- 
lar differentiation or bacteria, age so profoundly 
affects the mind that books might almost be clas- 
sified according to the productive ages of their 
authors. 

"The influence of climate on mental life is 
beyond control, except as we may choose our 
place of residence and vary our occupation ac- 
cording to the season or the weather. Days vary 
according to the ebb and flow of the vitality 
stored at week-ends — Monday often wasting en- 
ergy that is much missed by Friday. Delibera- 
tion and determination can do much to increase 
efficiency and well-being by employing one's best 
times appropriately: prizing the cumulative 
value of unbroken hours, — of morning concen- 
tration, afternoon acquisition, and evening medi- 
tation. Those who cannot control the dav must 
use the night — a French scientist even advocates 
a watch in the middle of the night. There are no 
rules of universal applicability, but study of the 
characteristics and circumstances of our best mo- 
ments may make possible their easy and frequent 
duplication. That was Pater's recipe for success- 
ful living. 

" In the matter of environment, congenial sur- 

[9» ] 



Professor Maturin 

roundings means spontaneous action. Yet lack of 
harmony may stimulate: pastoral poetry and 
landscape painting are the work of men weary 
of towns. Both town stimulus and country com- 
posure have corresponding values. Many realistic 
and introspective writers agree with Poe that cir- 
cumscription of space aids concentration of atten- 
tion : Pope worked best in his grotto, Montaigne 
in his tower, and many great books have been 
written in prisons. Many romanticists and phi- 
losophers, on the other hand, prefer wide views 
from hills or mountains, or to be beside or upon 
the sea. There are similar differences with regard 
to tidiness or disorder among scholarly parapher- 
nalia and personal belongings. Both efficiency 
and happiness depend upon a nice individual 
balance of habit and variety, freedom and re- 
straint. Flaubert used the same study for forty 
years, and Lecky could think only when per- 
fectly tranquil; but William Morris and Anthony 
Trollope liked to write on railway trains. 

"As for mental society or solitude, there has 
been, as Edmund Gosse puts it, 'a strong senti- 
ment of intellectual comradeship in every age of 
real intellectual vitality.' Philip Gilbert Hamer- 
ton was probably right in saying that intellect- 
ual traditions persist more through coteries than 

[ 99 ] 



The Observations of 

through books. Some general society is necessary 
to cultivate tolerance and sympathy. One must 
also come to some adjustment with democracy 
— its freedom and unrest, its ideal foundation and 
materialistic structure, its lack of prejudice and 
its inexperience — we cannot rest in Socrates' 
opinion that the majority is merely a heap of bad 
pennies. After the demands of social service are 
arranged for, however, the intellect must look 
through and beyond popular standards, and pur- 
chase independence at whatever cost. Much se- 
clusion is essential for knowledge, some solitude 
for wisdom. Both independence and sympathy 
are attained through an inner circle of select com- 
panions, kept in what Dr. Johnson called repair, 
by Emerson's plan of allowing the less interested 
to fall away and be replaced by choice additions. 
" Mental health, moreover, demands some con- 
scious agreement with one's income, and some 
mastery of expenditure. Too much money is as 
bad as too little. A generous amount insures free 
activity and rich material, but it relaxes deter- 
mination and demands discrimination. Wealth 
is essential for works of great accumulation in 
history, or of fine appreciation in the arts. But 
humanists appear to be none the worse for pov- 
erty — Cervantes was a public letter-writer, and 

[ I0 ° ] 



Professor Maturin 

his family took in washing. It is well, in any case, 
to learn with Socrates how many things one does 
not need, and to remember that there are uses 
even for adversity. 

" From physical foundation and social setting 
we approach personality: — that something pe- 
culiarly our own which, in the words of Petrarch, 
4 it is both easier and wiser to cultivate and to 
correct than to alter;' that something within us 
which, in the words of Emerson, 'accepts and 
disposes of impressions after a native, individ- 
ual law.' We grow in wisdom as we grow in the 
knowledge of such inner laws. They are funda- 
mental and inevitable. They control mental life 
and are not to be controlled save through much 
self-realization. Is a man instinctively active, or 
does he love contemplation and the forsaking of 
works? Is he single-minded, identified with his 
occupation, or does he work merely for bread and 
live, for himself alone, in some dear avocation? 
The single-minded may look forward to the per- 
fection that comes from practice — and toward 
becoming subdued to what he works in. Hence 
Charles Lamb on the melancholy of tailors and 
Dr. Robertson Nicoll on Matthew Arnold as ever 
the inspector of schools. Other men show their 
spontaneity and genuineness in their avocations 

[ ">i ] 



The Observations of 

— witness Michael Angelo's sonnets and Victor 
Hugo's sketches. Little intentional literature has 
charmed the world like the amateur quatrains of 
Omar the astronomer, translated by Fitzgerald 
the dilettante. 

"Is a man an idealist or a realist? Let him 
ponder Don Quixote's impra&icality and Sancho 
Panza's aimlessness, following inner impulse or 
outward stimulus, denying the world or losing 
his own soul. Let him ponder, moreover, Rem- 
brandt's struggle to serve both at the same time. 
The pitfalls of the realist are proverbial, but 
ideals, also, may be dangerous, through mistaken 
selection, partial generalization, or imperfect ad- 
justment to the fads in hand. 

"What, again, are our innate or acquired inter- 
ests and desires'? Does their vision of the future 
help or hinder our realization of the present"? Do 
we aspire after the impossible, expecting preci- 
sion or clarity, brevity or completeness, where 
they cannot or should not be ? Do we apprehend 
the unlikely? 'If anything external vexes you,' 
says Marcus Aurelius, 'take notice that it is not 
the thing which disturbs you, but your notion 
about it, which notion you may dismiss at once 
if you please.' Disappointment, says Dr. John- 
son, 'you may easily compensate by enjoining 

[ I02 ] 



Professor Maturin 

yourself some particular study, or opening some 
new avenue to information.' If we cannot attain, 
like Lamb, to hissing our failures, let us, like La 
Motte, retire to a Trappist monastery, and drown 
consciousness in study. Let us not expect ideal 
conditions — Spencer and Huxley could work 
but three hours a day. Let us look, if necessary, to 
our compensations. Napoleon had satisfactions 
in spite of his standing forty-second at military 
school. Darwin's inability to master languages 
and his loss of pleasure in poetry, painting, music, 
and natural scenery were more than made up for. 
Let us hope for no 'simple, plausible, easy solu- 
tion of life that will free us from all responsibil- 
ity; ' but endeavor to apprehend and ennoble our 
practical religion, that scale of values according 
to which we spend our hoard of life. 

" Mental action varies with individuals, yet 
Emerson's general statement is true — 'thought 
is a kind of reception uncontrolled by will; we 
can only open our senses and clear away obstruc- 
tions; suddenly thought engages us; afterward we 
remember the process and its results.' Attention, 
however, may be led, if not driven; sensibility 
may become dirigible ; it is possible to learn how 
to keep a fresh eye. Observation of our reactions 
will make possible a wise selection among stimuli; 

[ I0 3 ] 



The Observations of 

so Gray learned to seek music, Darwin to avoid 
it, and many have come to some conscious rela- 
tion between reading and writing. Experience 
will teach us how to free the mind from haunting 
suggestions by fixing and holding their values; 
how to recoiled: emotion in tranquillity; how to 
begin work slowly, and steadily, and then accel- 
erate; how to value the process as well as the pro- 
duct of acquisition. We may learn, through the 
slowness of accumulation, that we retain only 
what we use, that a bad memory may be the best, 
because selective, that even leisure may be well 
employed. 'Whatever I do or do not do,' said 
Sainte-Beuve, s I cease not to learn from the book 
of life.' Lope de Vega, sailing with the Armada, 
sacrificed all his manuscripts for gun-wads, but 
landed with eleven thousand new verses. 

"With such realization of ends and calcula- 
tion of means, production reduces itself largely 
to a matter of method. 'The difference between 
persons,' said Emerson, 'is not in wisdom, but 
in the art of classifying and using facts.' Each 
mind has some ways in which it works most easily 
and efficiently; let us discover and arrange for 
these, and reap the rewards. Then it is time to re- 
member Dante's saying that 'sitting upon down 
one cometh not to fame,' and Whistler's that 

[ I0 4 ] 



Professor Maturin 

'drudgery leads to felicity,' and Emerson's that 
'inspiration is the sister of daily labor.' Newton 
made his discoveries 'simply by always thinking 
about them.' Darwin's method was as elaborate 
as it was successful — with portfolios of abstracts, 
memoranda, and references; detailed, general, 
and classified indexes for books; brief, then full, 
then minute outlines before beginning to write. 
Concentration and intensity of thought come al- 
most of themselves through such a system. Dar- 
win's practice, too, of writing rapidly and later 
correcting deliberately, reaped the reward of both 
states of mind without suffering the loss involved 
in continually changing from one adjustment to 
another, — that drain of energy which makes in- 
terruptions so wasteful, even to minds that focus 
quickly. Wisely controlled change combines the 
benefits of continuity and variety. The scientist, 
whose study requires muscular as well as mental 
activity, tires less easily than the scholar busied 
wholly with books. Varying the adjustment of 
the same part, or successively occupying differ- 
ent parts of the mechanism, is more refreshing 
than total relaxation. 

"While thus adapted to the mental mechan- 
ism, a successful system must also be adjustable 
to the material in hand. Observation must be re- 

[ '05 ] 



The Observations of 

ceptive, reading selective. Poets may harvest their 
dreams ; historians must winnow their documents. 
Goethe's ' vast abundance of objects that must 
be before us ere we can think upon them,' and 
Hawthorne's 'immense amount of history that 
it takes to make a little literature,' must be pro- 
vided for, along with Pater's selection and rejec- 
tion — 'all art does but consist in the removal of 
surplusage.' Every system ought to provide, at 
any time and in any place, some form of record, 
careful enough to be permanent, yet so simple 
as not to be wasteful if never used — an envelope 
that can contain data or be written upon itself 
meets these needs. A system for preservation and 
arrangement must be comprehensive enough to 
include everything, accurate enough to make 
everything available, flexible enough to vary 
with any need, yet so simple as not to become 
a tax. Few devices are better than Darwin's la- 
belled portfolios, or smaller envelopes arranged 
alphabetically or logically. Note-books are use- 
ful only when abstracted or indexed. There are 
clergymen whose sermons write themselves as 
particular texts accumulate references in the in- 
terleaved Bibles in which they note what inter- 
ests them. For coordination and organization few 
things equal a tabular abstract on a single sheet 

[ ">6 ] 



Professor Maturin 

of paper large enough to show at a glance the 
nature of all the material. Such implements in- 
fluence intelle&ual efficiency more than we sup- 
pose. Much crabbed writing is due to bad pens, 
much journalistic ease to soft pencils. Self-reali- 
zation and the sense of life depend upon some 
form of diary; style varies with dictation and the 
typewriter. 

"The chief criteria of mental efficiency, then," 
read Professor Maturin, with a glance at the 
clock, "lie between Matthew Arnold's definitions 
of genius — 'mainly an affair of energy' and 'an 
infinite capacity for taking pains.' Professor 
James, holding that the average man uses only 
a small part of his energy, would have us persist 
through fatigue and ' second wind,' perhaps to a 
third and a fourth. Even if experiment, however, 
did not show that working beyond the fatigue 
point yields a rapidly decreasing product at a 
rapidly increasing cost, it would be uneconomic 
to attempt to increase our flow of energy so long 
as we waste so much of what we have in ineffi- 
cient and unhygienic methods of work. Let us 
rather study the conditions of our best moments, 
clear away hindrances, and provide helps. Let 
us prize the spontaneous activity of each state, 
using fortunate moments for concentration, less 

[ I0 7 ] 



Professor Maturin 

efficient periods for accumulation and selection, 
looking to future coordination. Let us follow nat- 
ural rhythms of activity, relaxing primary activ- 
ities by secondary functions useful also in them- 
selves. Thus regularity and routine will develop 
speed; accumulation and economy end in ripe- 
ness. Quantity condenses into quality; selection 
and arrangement grow into judgment and intui- 
tion that may bear inspiration and vision. 'A 
man's vision,' says Professor James, 'is the great 
thing about him.' The natural history of such 
vision, however, indicates that it is scarcely 
more than the synthetic apex of long and careful 
accumulation. The moment of the apercu is 
so memorable that the conditions precedent are 
usually forgotten, but the precious brilliance of 
the diamond is merely the result of a happy crys- 
tallization of common elements. 

" For all of which," concluded Professor Ma- 
turin with a smile, as he closed his portfolio, " I 
bespeak your most esteemed consideration." 



[ '08] 



p 



XI 

The Mystery of Dress 

ROFESSOR Maturin was leaning side- 
wise on his cane, gazing at the river. I stood 
by his side several moments before he came out 
of his reverie, greeted me warmly, and proposed 
a walk along the Drive. 

" I was thinking," said he, " of Fitzgerald's fall- 
ing overboard and coming up serenely, still wear- 
ing his top hat. This morning, while reading Scar- 
ron's sonnet on the decay of the pyramids and 
his black doublet, I noticed that I too needed 
a new coat. Later, I lunched with one colleague 
who is as dressy as Disraeli, and another who 
goes almost as much out at elbows as Napoleon 
when he entered Moscow. I have just left a third, 
who is devoted to Lowell's favorite combination 
of short coat and top hat. That brought me, by 
way of Old Fitz, to a general contemplation of 
the custom of wearing clothes. Hast any such 
philosophy in thee, shepherd?" 

" But little, I fear," replied I, "unless Carlyle's 
will do." 

"Scarcely, if you mean 'Sartor Resartus,'" was 
his answer. " Do you believe that man, by nature 

[ I0 9 ] 



The Observations of 

a naked animal, is demoralized by clothes, and 
that a return to nudity would dissolve society? 
On the contrary, when Humphrey Howarth, the 
surgeon, went to a duel naked for fear of the in- 
fection of cloth in a gunshot wound, his antag- 
onist came to his senses and withdrew his chal- 
lenge. Of course, I agree that whatever represents 
spirit is a kind of clothing, and that wisdom looks 
through vestures to realities. But clothes in 'Sar- 
tor' are merely the beginning of a philosophy of 
things in general. Carlyle's irritation when Brown- 
ing called on him in a green riding-coat, and his 
own refusal to carry an umbrella are more to my 
point. It is obviously appropriate that George 
Borrow should always have carried an umbrella, 
I understand how Goethe could ignore waist- 
coats and Coleridge forget his shirt, but why did 
Dickens dress like a dandy and Swinburne like 
a farmer? What do clothes mean?" 

"They sometimes represent the state of their 
owners' finances," said I. " Lack of suitable cloth- 
ing made Poe decline dinners and Johnson dine 
behind the screen — if he really did." 

"And Lovelace vary between cloth of gold 
and rags," continued Professor Maturin medita- 
tively, "much as Rembrandt varies his dress in 
his portraits of himself. But that was when one 

[ "O] 



Professor Maturin 

man would wear the worth of a thousand oaks 
and a hundred oxen, when mantles were con- 
ferred by royal patent, and orders grew rich out 
of hat monopolies. To-day, however, in spite of 
adulterations that I am told call for a pure tex- 
tile law, few of us are in need either of Pepys' 
prayers to be able to pay his tailor, or of Lord 
Westminster's thrifty making over his servants' 
liveries for himself. 

"Habit influences us more than cost, but what 
influences habit? Why did Milton always wear 
black, Pope gray, and Lamb snuff color? Why 
did distributing his cast clothes 'disconsolate and 
intender' Montaigne? Why did Tennyson send 
his old clothes to be measured for new ones ? Why 
do I find myself repeating an outfit I once chose 
because it suggested what naturalists call protec- 
tive coloration — when an animal, like a squirrel 
on a tree-trunk, is scarcely distinguishable from 
its background? Do I make a good principle 
gloss a dull habit?" 

"Such a habit," I replied, "like George Fox's 
suit of leather, does deprive you of the interest 
that accompanies even unsuccessful effort for va- 
riety. The fairer sex is never wearied in its quest 
of beautiful garb, nor sated with the rapture of 
attainment." 

[ «» ] 



The Observations of 

" How curiously we have changed all that," 
replied Professor Maturin, "in the three centu- 
ries since James Howell said that a letter should 
be attired simply, like a woman; an oration richly, 
like a man. I would not, like him, have putting 
on a clean shirt an occasion for special prayer ; but 
perhaps we have gone too far in our neglect of 
finery. Dr. Holmes's counsel, 'always err upon the 
safe side,' may be too cautious. Allingham says 
that Leigh Hunt was old in street costume, but 
young in his dressing-gown. Perhaps Goldsmith's 
satin, or Jefferson's plush, or Mark Twain's white 
flannels would renew my youth." 

" Are you elated by your scarlet gown on Com- 
mencement Day?" said I. 

" By no means so much as the boys are," he 
replied with a chuckle. "But that suggests an- 
other aspect of the matter. Outward and visible 
signs move those who are blind to inward graces. 
Since Protestantism is retrieving some of its ban- 
ished ceremonial, it might advance learning to 
clothe it with more circumstance. Yet, we seem 
to hesitate at symbolic clothing. Police and mili- 
tary uniforms help law and order, but we toler- 
ate ecclesiastical, judicial, and academic costume 
only during the performance of specific functions. 
We are so far from intellectual blue-stockings 

[ »*] 



Professor Maturin 

and political sans-culottcs, that we smile at musi- 
cians' hair and painters' cloaks, and banish yacht- 
ing and golf clothes from every-day wear. 

"Simplicity seems the only unwritten law that 
has succeeded so many written ones concern- 
ing clothes. Tradition itself is weak. We wear the 
Roman orator's neck-cloth, the wrist-bands that 
marked the gentleman's freedom from manual 
labor, the nobleman's black evening clothes, the 
courtier's sword-belt and gauntlet buttons, and 
a sailor king's long trousers — but all because 
we wish to, or, at least, do not mind. Names are 
naught, whether of mackintoshes or cravenettes 
or bluchers or tam-o'-shanters. We ignore even 
fashion, with its ever varying promise of equality 
to the uncomely and its powerful economic urge. 
We are emancipated by a common-sense in 
clothes that would have jailed a man in Addison's 
day. 

"We may dress as we like, so long as we are 
inconspicuous, but we must be that. We will no 
longer tolerate clothes-advertising like the Ad- 
mirable Crichton's. The man who lost his lawsuit 
for damages because his horse ran away when he 
saw the first top hat in England, would recover at 
least costs to-day. Gautier deserved the mobbing 
his pink doublet cost him. Tennyson was right 

[ »3] 



The Observations of 

to charge a young woman with creaking stays, 
and to apologize when he found that the sound 
came from his own braces." 

"What other principles would you adduce?" 
said I. 

"A modicum of care," he continued, "in 
agreement with Plato and Ruskin, that 'clothes 
carefully cared for and rightly worn, show a bal- 
anced mind.' I would have clothes appropriate, 
too, to climate, use, and the individuality of the 
wearer. I was once advised, most profitably, by 
a friendly portrait painter as to what was appro- 
priate to my' figure, features, and coloring. He 
objected especially to my hats. 

"It is curious how difficult hats are," contin- 
ued Professor Maturin, after a pause that I for- 
bore to break. " I doubt if any one, except For- 
tunatus, ever had a perfect one. The Greeks were 
wise in having little to do with them — suppose 
all Greek statues had their straw bonnets tied 
under the chin! Indeed, hats are chiefly develop- 
ments of the last five centuries, and, it is said, 
baldness with them. Yet, Synesius wrote 'In 
Praise of Baldness;' Caesar prized the privilege 
of continually wearing a laurel crown because it 
hid his, and I do not know why else the academic 
mortar-board comes down so far behind. I will not 

[ »4] 



Professor Maturin 

wear a ventilating hat like Rossetti's, although I 
long for summer and the straws that America 
has done so much to popularize. 

"I am too thin for the comfortable Tenny- 
sonian sombrero. I enjoy, as a dressing-gown, a 
cowled Capuchin robe that I once had made 
on Lake Orta, because of my theory that the 
flowering of the monastic mind in the Middle 
Ages was due to the germinating heat of hoods. 
But, generally, I would emulate an acquaintance 
who usually carries his hat in his hand, or another 
who actually owns none, were that not too con- 
spicuous. Even Leigh Hunt's charming essay 
on • Hats, Ancient and Modern' has no help for 
me — although I believe I might like a cocked 
hat or a chapeau. 

" I can take comfort in a coat," he continued, 
"if it is loose; and in overcoats, if they resemble 
Socrates' cloak, or the cloak that Petrarch be- 
queathed to Boccaccio. Indeed, I should welcome 
a return to shawls. I am uncomfortable in any 
neckwear but black, or in any but reindeer gray 
gloves. I should disesteem trousers had I not 
once inadvertently worn a striped pair with even- 
ing clothes — since then I have respected their 
power. In shoes I emulate Wellington's care, for, 
like William Morris, I need rather large ones. 

[ "5 ] 



Professor Maturin 

And I enjoy canes as much as Wellington did 
umbrellas." 

"All of which," said I, as we reached Pro- 
fessor Maturin's door, "even if unvaried, is suf- 
ficiently sober, appropriate, and individual." 

"And simple enough," concluded he, "for 
Frederick the Great or Newton. But, most of 
all, I wish that the Germans would extend their 
investigations in the hygiene of clothing. If we 
knew more about that, we might trust its archi- 
tecture and ornamentation to any discriminating 
tailor." 



[ "^ ] 



T 



XII 

Questions at Issue 
HE Sindbad Society at its last meeting 



on the night of the full moon, according to 
custom — met within the hospitable doors of the 
Ollapod Club. There, in the room with the roses 
on the ceiling, we had for dinner caviare with 
limes, a thin mushroom soup, duck roasted over 
spice-wood, Turinese pepperoni of chilies and 
preserved grapes, Leghorn coffee, and Turkish 
sweetmeats. 

The archaeologist was hot against such mod- 
ern abuses as motor boats in Venice, and motor 
cars on what he called the finest roads in the 
world — those from Nice to Genoa, Amalfi to 
Sorrento, and Ragusa to Gravosa. But when the 
diplomat begged him also to ban the ancient 
and dishonorable dogs from Constantinople, he 
became resigned to life's little ironies, and, in re- 
sponse to a general request, described quite won- 
derfully how, after years of fruitless digging, he 
had found a royal tomb in Egypt, and entered its 
hot silence, to find its stately presences, its fur- 
niture and linen, its sacrificial bread and incense 
and flowers, all with their sense of yesterday 
enduring through the ages. 

[ "7 ] 



The Observations of 

This prompted the musician, who was reared 
in Turkey, to tell how an Arab sheik he used to 
visit in the desert always bore with him the same 
atmosphere of untold centuries. The colonel fol- 
lowed, queerly enough, by saying that in his aero- 
plane tests he always had the same impression 
of the endless duration of time. Then some one 
broke the happy spell, as people will, with some- 
thing clever and distracting, although the joke 
was good enough — James Howell's on people 
who "travel much but see little, like Jonah in 
the whale." 

At that the talk scattered, the colonel describ- 
ing Coromandel and Malabar, the biologist a 
boat he was building; the mountain-climber plan- 
ning for Alaska, and the painter for Japan, until 
the psychologist asked the last why he was going 
there. 

The painter bent his head sidewise for a mo- 
ment, as he does when he is thoughtful, and then 
said: "Partly for the natural beauty, but chiefly 
to study an art that does not disturb the truth 
of its impressions by conscious theories like our 
perspective; that honors color and emotion as 
well as line and thought." 

" Your psychology is sound," commented the 
other. "Color vision is very organic, which is 

[ "8 ] 



Professor Maturin 

to say, emotional; being apparently caused by 
minute chemical changes in the eye, under the 
action of light. The appreciation of line, on the 
other hand, seems to be due to mental associa- 
tion with touching and feeling, and therefore is 
rather a matter of attention and judgment." 

"Will you kindly explain me also? "asked the 
musician, who had been telling how no one knows 
his own voice in a phonograph, because every 
one hears his own speech reverberate through 
his inner, as well as his outer ear. 

"Music is the most emotional and the most 
rhythmical of the arts," continued the psychol- 
ogist, "because the auditory nerve keeps close 
company in the brain with nerves from the heart 
and lungs. Melody is merely a series of answers 
to the body's expe&ation of its usual rhythm. As 
one of your own critics has said, when music 
seems to be yearning for the unutterable it is 
only yearning for the next note." 

The musician quelled the psychologist with an 
imaginary baton, which he then pointed at the 
biologist, saying, "Pray prove to the psychol- 
ogist that he is nothing but pulp." 

" He is surely little else," smiled the biologist, 
"built by evolution and run by a chemical en- 
gine." 

[ "9 ] 



The Observations of 

"Out on you scientists and your evolution!" 
broke in the archaeologist. "Can your mechan- 
ism make a Raphael, a Shakespeare, a Beetho- 
ven? Can your evolution show any architecture, 
sculpture, statecraft, drama, or philosophy equal 
to those of the age of Pericles? The world will 
produce nothing fine or permanent so long as you 
fellows tinker with its machinery. Your heresy 
of universal progress is merely a contemporary 
mythology that is falser than — " 

" Softly, softly," said Professor Maturin, shak- 
ing his long forefinger at the disputants. "The 
true philosopher, with Dante, loves every part of 
wisdom. Why can we not all enjoy knowing that 
cats hear better than dogs, and, at the same time, 
appreciate Blake's saying that the sun is not a 
round ball of fire, but the glory of the universe *?" 

Everybody prepared to be mollified until Pro- 
fessor Maturin undid his peacemaking by ask- 
ing the astronomer to tell us all what a comet 
looked like. When the astronomer replied that he 
had not looked through a telescope for years, but 
spent his time entirely in making calculations, 
the archaeologist threw up his hands and moved 
over to the painter and the musician, growling 
that he was going to spend the rest of the even- 
ing talking to somebody he understood. 

[ I2 ° ] 



Professor Maturin 

I heard the two eagerly agree with him that 
the Nile was the finest river in the world, if you 
were there in November, but that you ought 
never go to Japan except in summer, and then 
I moved to other groups, where the mountain- 
eer was comparing the view of the eternal snows 
from Darjeeling with that of valley, river, and 
sea from Mount Wellington, in Tasmania; or 
the diplomat was telling about Bulgaria; or the 
importer describing the Taj Mahal by moon- 
light; or the psychologist quoting, with a twin- 
kle toward the archaeologist, Sir Francis Galton's 
saying, that men who are too bad for Europe go 
to Constantinople, those who are too bad for Con- 
stantinople go to Cairo, and those who are too bad 
for Cairo go to Khartoum. 

Everybody talked for a long while, since this 
was the last meeting for the year, and in spite 
of the earlier disagreement, which was, perhaps, 
more apparent than real, I remember the even- 
ing as one of especial illumination. 



[ '21 ] 



XIII 

The Fountain of Youth 

PROFESSOR Maturin's study lamps were 
dimmed to the mellow glow that makes 
good talk. But his coffee and cigars were so wor- 
thy of the dinner we had just ended that we con- 
tinued to smoke in silent content, until our host 
asked about the Vicar's vacation. 

" My plans are about as usual," answered that 
worthy, naming his sea-shore place without en- 
thusiasm. 

"Mine, too, are about the same," added Pro- 
fessor Maturin, naming his similar place, with a 
similar lack of interest 

The Physician hemmed severely and shifted 
in his chair. " Let us have it," smiled Professor 
Maturin. 

" Why will you act as though you were a hun- 
dred years old?" said he. 

"Perhaps we feel so, sometimes," replied Pro- 
fessor Maturin, while the Vicar nodded. " I fancy 
we would not ignore the fountain of youth, if we 
knew where it was." 

"It isn't far," retorted the Physician; "it's 
merely open air and exercise." 

[ 122 ] 



Professor Maturin 

" I love open air," said Professor Maturin, " but 
I hate what is usually called exercise." 

"Naturally," replied the Physician, "being 
a man of mind. The cult of muscle is ridicu- 
lous in intellectual people. Muscle and vitality 
are by no means the same, and you cannot do 
much for either through unnatural gymnastics. 
But I 'mean by exercise the maintenance of har- 
mony between one's specialized functions and 
what may be called fundamental adivity, so that 
the whole works together happily and spontane- 
ously. Such a balance is as easy to preserve as 
it is important. We evolved as we are through a 
series of large general movements, and we need 
to continue enough of those to preserve a coor- 
dination that complements and supplements the 
particular functions that we most pradice. Thus, 
we walk upright, instead of on all fours, proba- 
bly as the result of long reaching and climbing. 
Climbing is not always convenient, but one may 
pradice setting up exercises anywhere until he 
feels as upright and as sprightly as a primate. I 
grant you it may not seem dignified," admitted 
the Physician, as the Vicar smiled at the pidure, 
"but it means health and happiness, and perhaps 
life itself." 

"Your suasion is sedudive," said Professor 

[ I2 3 ] 



The Observations of 

Maturin, "but how is one to know precisely 
what he needs, and when?" 

"Take, for illustration," resumed the Physi- 
cian, "those moments when you feel the need of 
exercise. A little analysis of the sensation will 
make you aware of a kind of hunger for activity 
in some particular muscle. A little ingenuity will 
devise some appropriate exercise, and its moder- 
ate practice will both meet the particular need 
that was felt and diffuse a general tone of well- 
being. 

"Conversely, a general or a local sense of well- 
being will seem to demand expression in action. 
A little abandon at such moments will suggest 
exercises that are both pleasant and profitable 
to the body and interesting and enjoyable to the 
mind. Similarly, mental and emotional states will 
often suggest free and exuberant bodily expres- 
sion. 

"Any thoughtful man, moreover, may deduce 
from the nature of his ordinary occupations what 
larger vital activities he should have. Thus, trunk 
and chest exercises would complement your spe- 
cial functions as professional speakers, and your 
sedentary study calls for supplemental arm and 
leg exercises in the open air. Professional sing- 
ers illustrate the successful development and 

[ "4] 



Professor Maturin 

maintenance of special functions through related 
and supplemental activities. 

"In short, if exercise is spontaneous and ra- 
tional, qualitative rather than quantitative, for 
the nerves rather than for the muscles, it will im- 
prove the efficiency and facility of one's habitual 
occupation, will establish a general vigor and sta- 
bility of body, and maintain mental balance and 
alertness; and, I repeat, such varied and recre- 
ative activities will suggest themselves to any 
thoughtful person, although it is wise, occasion- 
ally, to secure professional approval or amend- 
ment of them. In general, any moderate exercise 
that interests or stirs enthusiasm is good. Games, 
especially, correct nervousness and banish self- 
consciousness through their impersonal aim or 
cooperative effort, and they improve bodily struc- 
ture and function by the way. Bowling, boxing, 
fencing, and billiards are good. Tennis and golf 
are better, because they are out of doors. Golf is 
almost the best, because it is interesting, moder- 
ate, and available throughout life." 

"I could never become interested in any 
game," said Professor Maturin; "their artificial 
rules are irksome to me, and to acquire the skill 
necessary to make them enjoyable oppresses me 
as a waste of time." 

[ "5 ] 



The Observations of 

"Even so," rejoined the Physician, "there are 
plenty of health-giving pursuits that have also 
some utility in themselves. Among such are the 
handicrafts and gardening; walking, riding, and 
all sorts of excursions; swimming, rowing, and 
sailing. Swimming, especially, is natural and in- 
teresting; it employs many members harmoni- 
ously, it quiets and invigorates nerve a&ion, and 
gives strength and grace, self-control and confi- 
dence. I should prescribe for you both this sum- 
mer a daily swim, with plenty of floating on a 
quiet shore, and then, if you become as refreshed 
as you should, something more, like learning 
to sail. What, by the way, is your avoirdupois?" 
Neither Professor Maturin nor the Vicar had 
been weighed in years. 

"Weight is an important indication of health," 
continued the Physician. "Every man, I think, 
should have a complete health examination and 
record at least once a year. Defects can then be 
promptly remedied, and occupation and recrea- 
tion be properly adjusted to individual capaci- 
ties or limitations. One's family and personal his- 
tory and tendency should be considered in every- 
thing. More than a third of us have remediable 
defects in sight, about a tenth in hearing, and so 
many people neglect their teeth that they cause, 

[ «6 ] 



Professor Maturin 

Dr. Osier says, more deterioration than alcohol. 
Digestion has a way of announcing its disturb- 
ances, but the heart and spine disorders that one- 
tenth of us have are usually allowed to spread 
their deterioration unheeded; while almost no- 
body considers the structure and function of the 
feet as important as they are." 

"I remember," said the Vicar with a smile, 
"your first prescription for me — a looser hat, 
firmer shoes, and a belt instead of braces." 

" But does not such self-knowledge make one 
morbid?" queried Professor Maturin. "Have I 
not heard of a physician who had to abandon 
practice because he fancied himself afflicted with 
every disease that he diagnosed?" 

"Surely," responded the Physician, "you refer 
to Ferguson — the less we think about our own 
anatomy and physiology the better; but your 
physician must know them to keep you in health, 
as well as to extricate you from disease. Know- 
ledge about sanitation and hygiene, however, is 
both intelligible and helpful to a practical belief 
in personal and social health and good living. 
I wish that every one would preach as well as 
practice my favorite prescriptions of less heat and 
more humidity indoors, gray-green wall-papers 
and furniture to fit the individual, vacuum clean- 

[ I2 7 ] 



The Observations of 

ers and patent filters, and, ever, more fresh air. 
Outdoor air is the most valuable therapeutic that 
we know, just as it is the cheapest and the most 
neglected. Forty per cent of our mortality is due 
to neglect of fresh air. 

"If, in fine, every aspect of life were consid- 
ered first from the point of view of health; or if 
food and sleep and exercise and good air were 
put even on a par with other interests, we would 
have so much vitality that we might practically 
dispense with effort and enjoy all the profit and 
pleasure of spontaneity. Instead, we so neglect 
the entire physical basis that we allow a hurried 
breakfast, a heavy coat, an uncomfortable chair, 
or a bad light to spoil a whole day 's work, and, 
perhaps, permanently to damage the worker. 
Sedentary students ignore the need for activity 
until interest and perception grow sluggish, mem- 
ory dims, and minds that should produce snap- 
shots require long time-exposures. If, on the other 
hand, we would only practice a complete, instead 
of a partial, economy, we should all be twice as 
efficient and happy." 

"You are surely right," said Professor Maturin 
thoughtfully. " Plato was called so because of his 
broad shoulders, Xenophon and Erasmus loved 
horses, and Ronsard gardening. Christopher 

[ »8 ] 



Professor Maturin 

North walked from London to Oxford after din- 
ner. Fitzgerald sailed half the year. The Physi- 
cian does well to le&ure us, dominie. Let us both 
reform, and go in for Greek sanity and the joy 
of the age of chivalry. The times have changed 
since the Bishop of London was the licenser 
for physicians. But," he continued, as we rose 
to go, "if the Vicar and I promise to pra&ice 
your preachment this summer, what shall we do 
when we come back to town? My walking up 
and down and the Vicar's riding evidently need 
something more, by way of paprika." 

"I hope eventually to convert you both to 
golf," smiled the Physician, "but until then, ob- 
serve your needs and invent exercises to meet 
them, as I have indicated. Write me out a list 
of your inventions this summer; in the autumn 
I will go over both you and them, and perhaps 
suggest others. Next year I may prescribe moun- 
tains and motor cars for variety. Meanwhile, use 
the fountain of youth and prepare to live long 
and prosper." 

"Good-by, good-by," said Professor Maturin. 
" Many thanks. You have surely suggested a 
great perhaps." 



[ I2 9 ] 



XIV 

The Contemporary Fiftion Company 

"T^XCELLENTLY well met," said Pro- 

I J fessor Maturin, as we nearly collided on 
a down-town sidewalk, — "excellently well met. 
Come with me to the Contemporary Fiction 
Company." 

"And what may that be?" I inquired. 

"I do not yet quite know," he replied, "but 
with your kindly aid I hope soon to learn." 

The visible part of the Contemporary Fi&ion 
Company proved to be a private corridor in 
an office building, surrounded by half a dozen 
rooms occupied by young men and women and 
typewriters. Its master-mind was evidently the 
youthful but most business-like president, who 
included me in his welcome to Professor Maturin, 
and described his company as a semi-mutual 
corporation engaged in the production of fi&ion 
for the trade. 

"Our staple," said the president, "is short sto- 
ries, and in the present state of the market we can 
scarcely keep even with our orders. Last week 
we delivered one dozen each of aviation, auto- 
mobile, rural and suburban, settlement and soci- 

[ *3° ] 



Professor Maturin 

ology, power-boat and yachting, and two dozen 
heart-interest stories. To-day we ship a dozen 
near-Mexico army and navies, a rush order. We 
are now at work on a gross of adventure stories 
for a syndicate. The magazines are delighted to 
find that we may be depended upon to supply 
precisely what they want just when they want it, 
and save them the infinite annoyance of deal- 
ing with individual authors; and they also find 
that our rates for quantity save them a good deal 
of money. Therefore we are working up to our 
capacity of about seventy stories a week, and, 
incidentally, accumulating a tidy little surplus. 
Our system is very simple. I and the secretary- 
treasurer control the company, and draw up the 
specifications for all work. The sketching, filling 
in, and finishing are done by heads of depart- 
ments, who hold smaller blocks of stock, and by 
junior assistants, whose salaries are a share of the 
profits — a plan that insures their best interest 
and efficiency. But I fear that I bore you — " he 
hesitated. 

Being assured of our very great interest, the 
president led us to a long table beside which 
stood several drawers from filing-cases on a kind 
of rolling truck. "I have been working here on the 
specifications for the adventure stories I spoke 

t '3> ] 



The Observations of 

of," he continued, taking up a sheaf of printed 
blanks. " Here are some beginnings from the Ac- 
tion file. This newspaper clipping headed ' Fire- 
man rescues four' is not uncommon, but you can 
see the story grow when you combine it with this 
one — ' Little girl gets pass to feed fire horses.' This 
next clipping is sufficient in itself — 'Freighter 
sails to Africa to barter beads for wild animals.' 
These others — 'Palace ablaze,' 'Island sinks,' 
and 'Whole town destroyed' — are also promis- 
ing. Here is an item from the Anecdote file — 'A 
young fellow in a supper restaurant stares rudely 
at a lady, and flicks his cigarette-ash in the face 
of her remonstrating escort. The latter picks up 
the offender, shakes him like a bottle, and returns 
him gently to his chair. The escort happens to 
be Sandow.' In dull seasons we make up action 
outlines from lives of filibusters and explorers, 
from opera librettos and plays, and, finally, from 
nursery rhymes. You are perhaps surprised at the 
last, but they contain a great deal of fundamen- 
tal human interest. 

"Having selected a number of such Action- 
starts, as we call them, we turn to Situation. Here 
are some items from that file — 'Saw Flying 
Dutchman,' ' Racing against ship fire,' 'Chinese 
crew burns joss-sticks to comet.' Cut out the 

[ J 32 ] 



Professor Maturin 

comet, and all of these items go with the African 
barter ship. ' Religious seel: awaits the end of the 
world' — that may combine with 'Island sinks' 
or 'Whole town destroyed.' These others furnish 
Situation-starts — ' Smuggling by aeroplane,' 
'Foreign officers caught spying on forts,' 'Colo- 
nial returns displeased with home,' ' Has custom 
house search her social rival,' 'Fashionable wo- 
men see prize-fight.' That last gives a welcome 
variation from the conventional Monte Carlo 
gambling-hall opening. Many stories, of course, 
we begin with ' Charade r-starts.' Some of these 
come from clippings, like the following — ' Man 
who feeds nuts to squirrels,' ' Dead laborer was 
wealthy sociologist,' 'Former waiter becomes 
hotel manager.' Members of the staff, also, turn 
in suggestions, like the following — 'The man 
with the wardrobe trunk,' 'Doubles in appear- 
ance but not in character,' 'Hero and centre of 
story who never appears.' Gradually we are mak- 
ing up a canon of contemporary characters like 
the famous stock characters of the Roman or the 
Restoration comedy. Butlers and sailors, engi- 
neers and explorers, are staple. Bosses and spies 
are a bit stale, and we are going slow on commer- 
cial travellers and advertising managers. But we 
are featuring the army-woman, and we expecl: a 

[ J 33 ] 



The Observations of 

good response to our new ticket-chopper series. 
Live new characters are always in demand. 

"The last general specification is 'Setting and 
Scene,' like — 'Oil fire fogs the river,' and so forth. 
We consider scene so important that we have in 
every office Stevenson's words, 'Culminating mo- 
ments, epoch-making scenes, that strike the mind's 
eye, put the last mark of truth upon a story.'" 

After again hesitating and being again assured 
of our extreme interest, the president continued: 
"Theme, character, action, incident, situation, 
and scene being thus stated on the specification 
blanks, we write in hints for Treatment. Thus we 
keep the characters as simple as possible, trying 
for individual examples of conventional types, 
for definite persons that develop sharply, in small 
groups, with strong contrasts. The presentation 
we elaborate as much as possible — how the char- 
acters affect one another and display themselves 
in deeds and words. We cut out analysis and 
comment, but expand on appearance, manner, 
dress, and speech. Similarly, in action we make 
the pulsation of interest primary: emphasizing 
expectation, uncertainty, surprise, and quick so- 
lutions. With these various suggestions the spe- 
cifications go the rounds of the heads of depart- 
ments, each of whom makes further additions rep- 

[ '34 ] 



Professor Maturin 

resenting his special field. When the blanks come 
back we finally approve or amend them, and as- 
sign the stories for writing. Each junior assistant 
writes about one story a day, directly on the type- 
writer. When each story is written to the speci- 
fied length, the writer adds a title, and the piece 
goes the round of the heads of departments once 
more, for approval or amendment. All details of 
character, or action, or setting that are questioned 
are either omitted, or verified from sources in the 
office, or referred to people outside who know. 
A slight seasoning of humor is also written in 
wherever the characters would express or display 
it. We are, however, very conservative about 
humor, since it is impossible to know how read- 
ers will take it. Irony and satire are so generally 
misunderstood that we exclude them altogether. 
" Finally, our style man supervises all dialogue 
and diction. He is learned in every form of liter- 
ary speech from Platonic symposia and mediae- 
val disputation, down to mid-Victorian table talk 
and contemporary slang. He sees that all conver- 
sation is clear and consistent. In style he suffers 
nothing that is not expressive of the matter or 
instantly intelligible to the average reader, and 
yet, under his criticism, the style of our output 
is on a very high level. He hates adjectives, and 

[ '35 ] 



Professor Maturin 

has an eye even for syllables and letters, being 
severe with explosives and gutturals and cordial 
to liquids and labials. He has a collection of fine 
lines of verse to be memorized by any assistant 
whose di&ion grows commonplace. It was he 
who devised our system of naming characters 
from places, in order to avoid the possibility of 
annoying a&ual people, although he does some- 
times invent names to suit characters — like Mrs. 
Grandy,or Miss Miniver, or Monsieur Galantin. 
It was he, also, who devised our system of signing 
each story with a name appropriate to its variety, 
so that these signatures become trade names. 
Many of our best titles, too, are his. He named 
* Mary-Go-Round' and 'Helping Harrington,' 
'Yellow Jacket' and 'The Golden Goose,' 'The 
Rule of Three' and 'One Hundred and One,' and 
our ' Half-portion' and 'Tales of To-day' series. 
He becomes an officer of the company shortly, 
investing some of his large outside earnings from 
naming apartment houses, sleeping-cars, and man- 
ufactured articles like the 'Fair-price products."' 

"But what will be the effect upon literature?" I 
wondered, when we were again upon the street. 
"It will have no effect upon literature," said 
Professor Maturin. 

[ '36] 



XV 

The Old Doctor 

THE Old Do&or is dead," said Professor 
Maturin, holding up a marked newspaper, 
as he led the way to two easy chairs before the fire. 
" He was a very individual man of power and 
integrity, a philosopher as well as a physician — 
one of those rare people who love and tell the 
naked truth. So far as I know, he never blinked 
a fa6t nor shirked a danger. I feel as though I had 
known him all his life. For the last twenty years 
I have seen him only occasionally. But I saw 
much of him when I was a boy and a young 
fellow home from college, and my family knew 
him intimately before I was born. 

"As a small boy on some family errand I used 
often to wait in his outer office, looking through 
its window to the street, or gazing at its one en- 
graving of a lion staring at the sun, or its portrait 
of an Italian physician who gave his life to con- 
quer the plague. I always jumped when the doors 
of the inner office slid apart and the old docior 
stood, one hand on each door, with his large head 
bent and his gray-blue eyes intent upon me from 
their ambush of tumbled yellowish hair and 

[ J 37 ] 



The Observations of 

bristly beard. His rapid questions, in a rich but 
husky voice, always upset me, and although I 
knew him to be kindliness itself, I always re- 
sponded shakily to his summons into his sanc- 
tum. 

"I can see him, vividly, now, as he sat there 
writing prescriptions, his tall, thin form bent over 
his desk, his left hand, white and shapely, hold- 
ing the paper, his right, heavier and stained, trac- 
ing the words with nervous jerks and a lavish 
expenditure of ink. I see at the same time both 
the thinning thatch of his broad forehead and 
the much creased silk skull-cap that crowned his 
wrinkles later. 

"That inner office was crowded with cases 
that reached to the ceiling and overflowed with 
books and papers and glittering instruments 
that proclaimed their owner surgeon as well as 
physician. The old do&or seldom allowed his 
servants, whom he chose and kept with more 
kindliness than discretion, to enter it. And it 
was so full of all sorts of things that it seemed 
quite disorderly, although its owner could put his 
hand instantly on anything that he wanted. The 
whole place was redolent, moreover, of many 
drugs and, I regret to say, of horse-blankets. 
Sometimes, for exercise, the old do&or walked 

[ 138 ] 



Professor Maturin 

on his rounds — paying little heed to the road, 
moving fast or slow, upright or bent, according 
to the thought that abstracted him. But mostly 
he drove in a much-splashed chaise, a handsome, 
well-blooded, but ill-groomed horse, to which 
he was devoted. He was faithful all his life to 
such speedy but shaggy steeds, just as he was to 
pepper-and-salt suits and large, soft black hats, 
each precisely like its predecessor. At the conclu- 
sion of each of my early visits he would show 
me, through a window, some dog or cat or bird 
that he kept in his back yard, for he ranked pets 
among the consolations of life. 

" Even then I was interested in him as a per- 
sonality, for I had been told how, as a boy, he 
used to carry a bag of papers and do similar ser- 
vices for his father, a stately and irritable old 
judge, who was so formidable that few people 
could see any fatherly pride and affection in him. 
But as people used to say that the old judge 
could see in the dark, there is no reason to think 
that he was blind to his son's exceptional charac- 
ter and promise, especially as he sent him to col- 
lege, which was then very unusual in the town. 
There, after a time, the young fellow decided to 
go in for medicine. His reasons, which he did not 
tell his father, were that law was a selfish and soul- 

[ x 39 ] 



The Observations of 

less career, which contracted, instead of expand- 
ing, the mind, but that medicine was an oppor- 
tunity for both social service and, through its 
sure and universal truth, an apprehension of the 
divine disposition of affairs. This last belief he 
retained throughout his life, his spirit and im- 
agination never capitulating to the fatalism of 
his profession. 

"The old judge died while the boy was in col- 
lege, leaving an estate composed chiefly of loans 
to poor people who could not pay, and rich men 
who were slow to do so. Still, there was enough, 
with considerable sacrifice on the part of the 
mother, to enable the young man to complete 
his college years and go on to a metropolitan 
university until he earned his degree in medi- 
cine. With this, for the time, most exceptional 
training, and the approbation of his best pro- 
fessors, he returned to the old town to enter 
upon general practice, so enamored of his pro- 
fession that he wondered why all men were not 
physicians. 

"He soon won back the intimacy of a few 
close friends, but soon came, also, to be disap- 
pointed in the force and genuineness of most of 
his townspeople. On the other hand, his own care- 
lessness in dress and indifference to small formal- 

[ Ho ] 



Professor Maturin 

ities confirmed the general local suspicion of any 
one who had been so long "away." He discon- 
certed people, also, by his superior knowledge 
and diredtness, and his unfailing attack upon 
whatever savored ofweakness or insincerity. Con- 
sidering the family finances and his own lack of 
physical ruggedness, he definitely put marriage 
aside from his calculations, and when this, like 
most of his conclusions, became known, it fur- 
ther discounted his social availability. Hence, his 
life soon became restricted almost wholly to his 
home, his small circle of intimates, and his pro- 
fession. 

"At his profession he continued to work tre- 
mendously, giving exhaustive study to each case 
that came his way, inquiring into local epidem- 
ics and sanitation, tirelessly investigating new 
ideas, and organizing his entire technical know- 
ledge. He cheerfully turned night into day when 
he was needed, as he did later, when I knew him 
to get up in the middle of the night to visit a 
seriously sick patient whom he had already seen 
before and after breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and 
just before going to bed. Birth and death loomed 
so large in his horizon that he was far from ever 
considering what it was in his place to do. Self- 
forgetful as he was, however, he made no senti- 

[ Hi ] 



The Observations of 

mental sacrifices, but was the first to introduce 
trained nurses into the town, and to urge, every- 
where and always, the need for the local hospital 
that came only long after. He had, even, some 
dreams of preventive medicine. 

"His father's successor and the group of able 
lawyers, bankers, and business men that con- 
trolled the town, looking upon all of this with 
favor, determined him, although still young, to be 
one of themselves, and made him health officer 
and physician to the county jail and poor-farm. 
This confirmed his identification with his work 
until he thought of it all the time, riding, walking, 
at his desk, at meals, or lying awake at night. In 
this way, without relaxing his following of the 
latest professional knowledge, he came to believe 
increasingly in dire6t observation and experi- 
ence, and acquired a discriminating respect for 
the traditional lore of old men and women. Grad- 
ually, more and more people began to see in him 
the true physician — working for work's sake, 
giving time and labor to the poor without re- 
ward, a tireless guardian of the lives entrusted 
to him, a devoted champion and example of all 
sanity and wholesomeness. 

"Some of his traits, however, still delayed his 
complete success. He was often restless, some- 

[ H2 ] 



Professor Maturin 

times impatient in argument, and not always con- 
siderate of his opponents. Once he even slapped 
a recalcitrant patient. He was deeply humiliated 
over that, and candid and regretful over his other 
defe&s, but he held that one could do but little 
by special effort to change one's character. He 
was, moreover, too learned and quick-witted and 
plain-spoken to be a comfortable colleague for 
most of his fellow practitioners. They felt obliged 
to look with disfavor on his preference for simple 
medicaments and his emphasis on hygiene, and 
they were publicly pained and privately severe 
concerning his carelessness of appearances and 
his open pooh-poohing of what he called 'the 
hocus-pocus of the profession/ 

"But after his marriage, which was an incon- 
spicuous one, the softer and finer sides of his 
nature took the permanent ascendency, and the 
community, although it knew little of his family 
life, felt a new gentleness behind the firmness 
of his growing power of command. It was then 
that he began the practice, which he would have 
scorned earlier, of carrying in his pockets cheer- 
ful and humorous quotations as means for en- 
livening depressed patients. Thus, slowly but 
steadily, through some conspicuous successes 
and many sure ones, his reputation became more 

[ '43 ] 



The Observations of 

and more established, until, at about forty-five, 
he was accepted by all as unquestionably the 
chief physician of the town. 

"His frankness, however, by no means de- 
creased as his fame advanced, but people increas- 
ingly understood his eccentricities as they in- 
creasingly honored his intellect and revered his 
charade r. He never hesitated to say, for example, 
that his successes were due more to experience 
and common sense than to any scientific know- 
ledge. This was, perhaps, a limitation of his loca- 
tion so far from the centres of scholarship, but 
he would have followed reason rather than au- 
thority anywhere. When the chief apothecary 
caught cold and died from a consumption that 
the old dodor had long pronounced cured, he la- 
mented that this mistaken judgment had brought 
him more reputation than any real cure he had 
ever accomplished, and he would sometimes re- 
gretfully compare the tremendous exertions that 
had gone unrecognized in his earliest pradice 
with the late unreasoning praise of almost every- 
thing he did — 'So hard it is,' he would say, 
'to establish unpopular truth or check popular 
error.' 

"In spite of the fad. that his penetration so far 
exceeded the ordinary that his wit often led him 

[ M4 ] 



Professor Maturin 

beyond knowledge to track nature to her lair, he 
used to grieve that so many things were hidden 
from him. He trusted much to the wisdom of the 
natural course of things, watching his cases and 
all their surrounding conditions closely, sweep- 
ing away many of the cobwebs of current prac- 
tice, and emphasizing chiefly prescriptions of hy- 
giene. Most diseases, he held, were either hope- 
less or would cure themselves if people would be 
reasonably careful. After his income became ade- 
quate for his modest needs he disliked to take 
money for his services, preferring to get whatever 
he wanted from the local tradesmen, and to care 
for them and their families without charge on 

either side. 

"Gradually, without decreasing his labors — 
I have heard that he made fifty thousand pro- 
fessional calls — he became the community's phi- 
losopher and friend, as well as its physician. This 
was especially the case after he came home, a citi- 
zen of the world, from a late European journey, 
during which, apparently, he had ignored land- 
scape, archite&ure, and art in order to converse 
with all sorts and conditions of men. As his ear- 
nestness and meditation increased with age, and 
his utterance, always unexpected and pithy, grew 
ever more apt and forcible, his sayings became 

[ MS ] 



Professor Maturin 

widely quoted and accumulated into a body of 
doctrine. 

"He was by no means chiefly a critic, for, 
as he said, there were always more unfortunate 
men needing encouragement than fortunate men 
needing reproof. He maintained that a clean mind 
and busy hands were proof against any tribula- 
tion, and that happiness lay not in the world, but 
within the mind. 'Whoever would live wisely,' 
he would say, ' must know what he wants,' and 
' Good humor bears half the ills of life.' 

"It will be long, indeed, before his place and 
his friends forget 'the Old Do&or.' " 



[ h6 ] 



XVI 

Breakfasting with Portia 

"T~)ROBABLY few persons who are not pro- 
X fessionally interested," said Professor Ma- 
turin, u realize how earnestly the schools of to-day 
are endeavoring not only to conserve the proved 
excellences of traditional knowledge, but also to 
provide new varieties of training that are made 
imperative by present-day conditions. Hence 
the subjects in the curriculum that appear fads 
to the fathers — nature study, manual training, 
physical education, household science and art, 
music, and the fine arts. Probably fewer yet know 
that American experiment in one of these fields, 
especially, has been so notable that the British 
Board of Education sent a special commission 
to study and to report to Parliament on the teach- 
ing of domestic science or household economics 
in the United States. 

"It was the scientific and comprehensive char- 
acter of this report, sent me by a young friend, 
that first informed me of our distinction in this 
difficult field. This same young person had pre- 
viously overcome my doubt as to the propriety 
of making such matters the subject of academic 

[ H7 ] 



The Observations of 

study by learnedly quoting Xenophon's Socrates, 
to the effe6t that 'domestic management is the 
name of an art, as that of healing or of working 
in brass, or of building.' 

"It should be understood, to be specific, that 
she, whom we may call Portia, as a present stu- 
dent and a prospective propagandist of domestic 
science, is about to receive her degree from that 
part of one of our metropolitan universities which 
conduces research in education and trains teach- 
ers both of the ancient liberal arts and of such 
modern practical sciences as Portia's own. After 
several years devoted to the usual college sub- 
jects, her attention is now concentrated upon ed- 
ucational principles and procedures in general, 
and on the practice and presentation of her chosen 
subject in particular. For a considerable period 
she has overflowed with such interesting infor- 
mation concerning the chemistry and biology, the 
production and manufacture, and the preparation 
and the assimilation of foods, that I was more 
than delighted one day to be invited to partake 
of a breakfast prepared by her and an associate, as 
one of the numerous practical tests of knowledge 
and efficiency demanded by her curriculum. 

" On my arrival, the Princess Ida who presided 
over this department of the modern Athenaeum 

[ us ] 



Professor Maturin 

exhibited the equipment for the study and prac- 
tice of her science, — a technical library of many 
volumes; elaborate collections of current reports 
and monographs; photographs, charts, and rec- 
ords of investigations; especially equipped of- 
fices and lecture and conference rooms, — and 
then presented me to the half-dozen instructors 
under her direction. The laboratories for the bio- 
logical and chemical study of food materials were 
not unlike others that I had seen; but those de- 
voted especially to food preparation uniquely 
combined the facilities of an elaborate club 
kitchen with the scientific immaculateness of a 
surgery. The whole I was told, by the way, was 
merely preparatory to a really perfect set of lab- 
oratories which were building. 

"A tile-topped laboratory table, with a skel- 
eton gas-stove above, and various drawers and 
cupboards beneath, stood in the centre of the 
room for the demonstrator. About this, arranged 
on three sides, like a banquet table, were perhaps 
thirty similar but connected desks at which the 
students sat in trained-nurse uniform, facing their 
instructor. 

"The right hand drawer of each desk con- 
tained such familiar small utensils as knives, 
forks, and spoons, along with certain others that 

[ J 49 ] 



The Observations of 

would have seemed strange to our grandmo- 
thers; all carefully listed, their condition and ar- 
rangement being subject to military inspection. 
Each drawer at the left contained flours, sugar, 
spices, and condiments in laboratory precision. 
The cupboard below each desk, closed by a slid- 
ing shutter, contained measuring-cups, bowls, 
platters, pans, and the like; each equipment be- 
ing adequate for all ordinary cooking processes. 
Around the sides of the room were stoves and 
ranges of various designs heated by coal, char- 
coal, electricity, steam, gas, and oil, not forget- 
ting the professor's Aladdin oven, or the peasant's 
hay-box cooker. 

" Here were also immaculate porcelain sinks 
where uniformed maids cleaned the larger uten- 
sils. Each student kept her own equipment neat. 
Cases and frames held special implements and 
supplies drawn from a nearby stock-room, or 
from library or files. Here and there were bul- 
letin boards displaying tables for computing 
dietaries, and newspaper clippings concerning 
the cost of living. In one corner, as an interest- 
ing reminder of the needs and possibilities of 
the simple life in the midst of this intentionally 
ideal equipment, stood an outfit that might be 
made and used in the remotest rural school — 

[ 'SO ] 



Professor Maturin 

a cheap but good oil stove, mounted on the zinc- 
covered top of a packing-box, that included 
inexpensive examples of the fundamental im- 
plements, and had an upturned fruit crate for 
a seat. This entire outfit cost about four dol- 
lars. 

"In one of these laboratories, students were 
making a comparative, experimental study of 
breads; halting occasionally to hear from the 
demonstrator and ponder the do&rine of the pro- 
gression of batters and doughs from corn bread, 
through waffles, to twin mountain muffins — 
'which are the beginning of cake/ In another 
room, fruits were being preserved separately and 
in combinations, and in all mediums from dis- 
tilled water to heavy syrups. In a third, the vis- 
itor was given, as specimens of material for dis- 
tribution, a mimeographed recipe; a blue-print 
diagram of the conventional cuts of beef, lamb, 
veal, and other meats; and a sheet of small pho- 
tographs showing how typical cuts of good meat 
should look. 

" Meanwhile, Portia and Nerissa had been 
busy with the breakfast in a separate kitchen 
and dining-room, as like as possible to those in 
ordinary homes, yet planned with the best wis- 
dom and taste of the departmental staff. To this 

[ «5i ] 



The Observations of 

dining-room the pilgrim was now summoned 
by his young friend, costumed as a maid and 
appearing slightly anxious, for she and her ally 
were also to serve the meal that they had pre- 
pared. The Princess Ida's premier acted as host- 
ess, and a masculine professor and a feminine 
instructor joined to make a party, typical, the 
hostess announced, of sedentary men and of 
moderately a&ive women — a statement that 
apprised me of the facl that I was considered not 
merely as a guest, but also as scientific data. The 
simple goodness of the linen and china, however, 
was only that of the discriminating home, and 
the growing plant on the table was there, I was 
told, for purely aesthetic reasons. 

"But superior knowledge and skill entered 
with the food — stewed prunes and apricots, as- 
tonishing in size, delicious in flavor. Although 
I am unaccustomed to breakfasting at noon, 
and although years of housekeeping have been 
unable to blot out the remembrance of previous 
prunes, I fell to with avidity. My memory of the 
ensuing conversation is somewhat mingled with 
later talks with Portia, but then or afterward, 
I learned that our total consumption of this dish 
was only about four ounces, at a cost of approx- 
imately three cents for four persons. A home, of 

[ 152 ] 



Professor Maturin 

course, must also count the cost of all the food 
prepared, but not consumed. 

"The delectable quality of the cereal that fol- 
lowed was due, along with its superior digestibil- 
ity, I was informed, to its first having been briefly 
boiled in order to open the grains, by bursting, 
to the action of the gentler after-cooking. The 
cost of cereal, I was reminded, was small when 
compared with that of its accompaniments. We 
ate one cent's worth of cereal, but the sugar upon 
it cost an equal amount, and the cream five 
times as much. But the professor justified the 
combination because of the constituent elements 
of the three; cream being largely fat, sugar largely 
carbon, cereal largely protein. 

"When later I asked Portia what this protein 
was, she replied in a sort of chant, as though 
she were assisting at some mystic rite : ' Next to 
water, protein is the largest ingredient in the 
human body, forming about eighteen per cent. It 
is similar to the white of egg, the lean of meat, 
the curd of milk, and the gluten of wheat.' This 
and other intimations gave me to understand that 
protein is the sine qua non of dietetics. 

"As we enjoyed the admirable omelet which 
followed — eight ounces: one of proteid, one of 
fat, one-half ounce of carbo-hydrate; cost ten 

[ '53 ] 



The Observations of 

cents for four — the professor informed me that 
the nutritive value of food is measured by the 
heat it gives off in combustion, the unit of com- 
putation being the calorie, or the amount of 
heat which would raise one pound of water four 
degrees Fahrenheit. Protein and carbo-hydrate 
yield eighteen hundred to the pound, fats about 
four thousand. The necessary number of calories 
per day for a professional man is somewhere 
between the thirty-two hundred averaged by 
American and the thirty-three hundred averaged 
by Japanese university professors. The standard 
is placed at twenty-seven hundred by the spe- 
cial agent in charge of the United States Depart- 
ment of Agriculture's investigations in nutrition. 
Hard muscular labor requires half as much 
again. These figures are the result of measure- 
ments, by means of a so-called respiratory calori- 
meter, of the entire receipts and expenditures of 
the human body, under varying conditions and 
for periods of from three to twelve days. These 
and similar experiments are described in bul- 
letins published and distributed without charge 
by the Department of Agriculture. Recent ex- 
periments by other investigators make the ideal 
number of calories considerably less. 

"Toasted rolls and drip coffee ended our meal; 
[ '54 ] 



Professor Maturin 

the former weighed four ounces, two-thirds carbo- 
hydrate, the remainder equally proteid and fat; 
the ingredients costing only two cents, or as much 
as the butter used on them. Throughout, of course, 
no estimate was made of the cost of labor, an ele- 
ment which, together with rent or interest on 
equipment, usually more than equals the cost of 
food. Fuel costs, approximately, one-tenth of this 
amount. 

"Coffee was assigned no nutritive value in the 
tabular statement of our breakfast that Portia 
worked out and brought me some days later. But 
as a mild stimulant, it does more good than harm, 
very much less harm than tea, which, when not 
freshly made, contains chemicals difficult of di- 
gestion. The coffee we four enjoyed cost approx- 
imately three cents. 

"When Portia told me that she was also to 
give a luncheon, with soup, entree, salad, and a 
sweet, I fear that I was too precipitate in my 
commendation of her work, my prophecies for 
her future, and in implying my willingness again 
to serve the cause of science. I tried my best, 
however, to be discreet, for I am very anxious 
to be invited again, and I was rather pleased at 
my adroitness in presenting her with an individ- 
ually bound volume of Ruskin, with the red silk 

[ 155 ] 



Professor Maturin 

marker at that page of 'The Ethics of the Dust' 
which says of cooking: 

"'It means the knowledge of Medea and of 
Circe and of Calypso and of Helen and of Re- 
bekah and of the Queen of Sheba. It means the 
knowledge of all herbs and fruits and balms and 
spices; and of all that is healing and sweet in 
fields and groves, and savory in meats; it means 
carefulness and inventiveness and watchfulness 
and willingness and readiness of appliance; it 
means the economy of your great-grandmothers 
and the science of modern chemists; it means 
English thoroughness and French art and Ara- 
bian hospitality; and it means, in fine, that you 
are to be perfe&ly and always "ladies" — "loaf- 
givers;" and, as you are to see, imperatively, 
that everybody has something pretty to put on, 
so you are to see, yet more imperatively, that 
everybody has something nice to eat.'" 



[ 156] 



XVII 

Summer Science 

" "IV If Y young friend, Portia," said Professor 
i.VX Maturin, "was plainly dubious when I 
suggested making a week-end visit to the scien- 
tific colony where she planned to spend the sum- 
mer doing research work in biology. She did not 
believe that I would be interested in observing 
a hundred college professors and students listen- 
ing to lectures and looking through microscopes. 
She implied that occasional visitors were felt, by 
their holiday moods, somewhat to distract the 
attention of the serious workers. And, finally, 
she suggested that I was perhaps temperament- 
ally unsuited to lead the very simple life that 
prevailed, the place being as unlike as possible 
to the typical summer resort. However, when I 
pleaded my sympathetic interest in all things 
human, modestly called attention to my reputa- 
tion for discretion, and gently reminded her that 
I had proved an acceptable and even welcome 
guest among the peace agitators of Lake Placid, 
the literati of Onteora, and the artists of Cornish, 
she ceased to protest. I might do as I liked; she, 
of course, would be glad to see me. 

[ '57 ] 



The Observations of 

"So it was that I found myself, one calm Sat- 
urday evening, en route for her • Marine Biologi- 
cal Laboratory.' During my sail along the Sound 
I found myself amusedly wondering whether 
Portia's professors would prove to be anything 
like the important mate who gave so many more 
and so much louder orders than were necessary, 
in warping the boat from the dock. I was pleased 
to find them rather more like the lights that 
later appeared along the shore — some clear and 
steady, some brilliant but intermittent, others a 
trifle spectacular in coloring, all plainly enjoy- 
ing a comfortable sense of their importance to 
the community; but all of them interesting, and 
some performing services really indispensable to 
human progress. 

" The realization of high thinking and, presum- 
ably, plain living began with a six o'clock land- 
ing next morning and the writer's earliest break- 
fast in years, watching, meanwhile, coming events 
cast their shadows before in the person of a slen- 
der spe&acled gentleman in blue, who slowly 
consumed one roll and a cup of frequently di- 
luted coffee, while he rapidly assimilated the con- 
tents of a thin, black, scientific-looking volume 
with round corners and red edges. 

"Within an hour, on a smaller steamer, we 
[ '5» ] 



Professor Maturin 

sighted the red brick, yellow shingle, and green 
slate buildings of a station of the United States 
Fish Commission. It was because of this station, 
devoted to everything that affects our fisheries, 
and of its especial facilities for collecting and 
preserving marine life, that a group of college 
scientists established the biological laboratory 
by its side, some twenty years ago. Their leader 
was still the director, and although most of the 
administrative details were now delegated to 
younger men, he was still regularly in residence, 
in a cottage erected by his appreciative col- 
leagues to replace one destroyed by fire, and sur- 
rounded by hundreds of carefully reared pigeons, 
which for years he had made the basis of minute 
studies in heredity, with the aid of two Japanese 
artists, who painstakingly recorded the contour 
and coloring of every peculiar bird. 

" The slow and careful entrance of the steamer 
into the landlocked harbor, through passages so 
tortuous as to make a local pilot often necessary, 
indicated the peculiar geographical character of 
the locality. So great has been the sea's erosion 
that it is difficult to say whether the rocky shore 
line most resembled the margin of a cake at 
which youthful teeth had been at work, or the 
end of a flag whipped into tatters by the wind. 

[ J 59 ] 



The Observations of 

It is this intricate character of the region that 
makes it the congenial home of many sea crea- 
tures elsewhere obtainable only with difficulty. 

" Portia met me at the pier, explaining her 
somewhat tempered summer bloom by the fad 
that she was spending the sunniest hours of 
the day indoors in the laboratory. She conducted 
me through a typical, old-time New England 
village of perhaps five hundred inhabitants, 
through streets almost as devious as the water- 
ways, and similarly appropriated by science. 
Next to the village church, which displayed the 
usual placard that the ladies of the congregation 
were about to hold a fair where refreshments and 
a large assortment of aprons might be had, the 
village store made the unusual announcement 
that pure paraffin and proof alcohol were always 
on hand, and that microscopes with all attach- 
ments might be ordered. This emporium was 
even the subjeclof a biological joke, which Portia 
kindly explained to me: 4 Why was Portrope's 
shop like an amoeba?' 'Because it was a single 
cell with all the functions.' This comforted me 
with the feeling that even if the scientists did 
take themselves seriously, they yet preserved the 
saving grace of humor. 

"I was led to the most remarkable lodgings 
[ '60 ] 



Professor Maturin 

that I have ever occupied, kept by a publisher's 
reader, who had elected to spend her summer in 
this way for the sake of variety. I am convinced 
that she got it, or at any rate, that she gave it. 
Her furnishings were of the simplest, and the 
strangest, having been leased from the amoeba 
at ten per cent of their cost for each month of 
use — an arrangement which, like the furnish- 
ings, would scarcely have been acceptable to any 
but an imagination that had been subje&ed to 
the severest strains. 

"The roof also leaked, but in such a desultory 
fashion that it was about the only thing in the 
place that impressed me as free from the influence 
of scientific efficiency. But the house was direclly 
on the harbor, my room overlooking that and the 
laboratory, which occupied a compound next 
to the commission. Portia departing to finish a 
drawing before the bathing hour, I was left to 
observe with interest, at a window apposite, an 
assiduous young man intently bent over his work, 
which, Portia informed me later, was a study of 
the coagulation of lobster's blood. Subsequent 
observation of a few of his neighbors convinced 
me that at least some of the investigators were 
not unacquainted with academic leisure. Down 
by the shore an officer of our regular army nurses 

[ '6. ] 



The Observations of 

was living in a specimen hospital tent, for the 
purpose of testing the capabilities of its construc- 
tion, texture, and color for service in the field. 

"The taste of the publisher's reader was equal 
if not superior to her imagination. If the house 
reminded me that she was in the habit of re- 
ceiving many strange things, the food was proof 
that her standard of acceptance was very high. 
Steamed clams, real chicken, and delicious vege- 
tables, where they must have been by no means 
easy to procure ; lobster in a chafing-dish, fruit sher- 
bet, and thoroughly sophisticated coffee, formed 
our Sunday dinner. The conversation was no less 
interesting, my opposite at table being a distin- 
guished biological painter. It had never previ- 
ously occurred to me that of course there must 
be such. Usually busied in evoking the outward 
form and semblance of prehistoric creatures from 
their remains in museums, he was here for semi- 
recreation, painting marine life from the aquaria 
of the Fish Commission. I was later presented 
to the object of his current admiration, a creature 
with the anatomy of a frying-pan and the man- 
ners of the Bowery, popularly known as a 'sting- 
ray' because of a dangerous weapon in its tail. 
His next sitter was to be a rare specimen of para- 
site fish, which, although nearly two feet long, was 

[ is* ] 



Professor Maturin 

deriving all its locomotion about the tank from 
a much-embarrassed but helpless shark, to the 
under side of which it was complacently attached 
by means of a su&ion arrangement on the top 
of its head. 

"Portia, like most of the other students, had 
lodgings in a private house in the village, there 
being not more than half a dozen cottages ex- 
clusively devoted to summer guests. She took 
her meals at the laboratory mess, where the plain 
but adequate food was flavored with abundant 
talk of distribution, variation, regeneration, mu- 
tation, and the dynamics of protoplasm. Having 
once fixed these catchwords in mind, I rapidly 
acquired the local language, and could shortly 
ask simple questions without difficulty. 

" In addition to the long, low mess hall, the 
laboratory occupied three other square, two-story 
buildings of gray shingle, set off by dark green 
paint. The largest, with several wings, contained 
class-rooms and laboratories for two of the three 
regular courses of instruction in physiology, mor- 
phology, and embryology. On the upper floor 
was an excellent technical library with Agassiz's 
motto, 'Study nature, not books.' Around the 
sides of both floors and in the other buildings 
were individual working rooms, in which the 

[ '63 ] 



The Observations of 

more advanced investigators sentenced them- 
selves to solitary confinement during the major 
part of each day. These rooms and the students' 
tables in the several larger rooms were at the 
disposal of the colleges from whose annual con- 
tributions most of the working funds of the lab- 
oratory are derived. 

" During the six weeks of regular class instruc- 
tion in July and August, there are two or more 
public evening le&ures each week, in which visit- 
ing scholars present the more generally interesting 
aspects of their special fields of study. I did not 
share Portia's enthusiastic anticipation of the com- 
ing of a lecturer who had just returned from hunt- 
ing a particular variety of snail in the South Sea 
Islands, but the le&ure changed my apprehen- 
sion to appreciation, and, finally, to admiration. 

"Other le&ures dealt quite as attractively with 
the development of habits among birds, the de- 
tection of the minute organisms that cause many 
human diseases, the study of heredity in families 
of rabbits and guinea-pigs, and the creation of 
new forms of plant life. Every considerable in- 
vestigation of which I heard had definite relation 
to some generalization that was capable of prac- 
tical application — a striking contrast to similar 
work in certain other sciences. 

[ 164 1 



Professor Maturin 

"Portia's problem, which I was interested to 
find important enough to deserve a private room, 
was the regeneration of planarians, minute ma- 
rine parasites which have the power, when di- 
vided, of developing new heads or tails. Her 
endeavor was, by means of a microscope, mag- 
nifying some twelve hundred times, to observe 
and trace the earliest differentiation of the cells 
that were to form the several new organs. Of 
the hundred or more students in residence, about 
half of them young women, perhaps one-half 
were carrying on similar studies, of varying de- 
grees of difficulty. Among these were college 
professors and instructors who were conducting 
researches that had extended over many years. 
The volumes of the laboratory's monthly publi- 
cation, containing records of the processes and 
results of such work, made more than ordinarily 
interesting reading, even for the layman. 

"The recreations of the place were as inter- 
esting as its labors. The social life was that of a 
highly sele&ed college community, where every- 
body knows everybody else and his wife, and 
finds them well worth knowing; and everywhere, 
always, there rose and fell a tide of excellent 
talk. 

"In short, I had so good a time that I visited 

[ '65 ] 



The Observations of 

Portia not three days, but ten, and then departed 
with a regret that was not dispelled even when 
she formally approved my conduct by inviting 
me to come again. She was so smiling and sym- 
pathetic at the pier that I found myself asking 
a question that had repeatedly suggested itself, 
but which had as often been spontaneously re- 
pressed. 

"What, if any, was the definite or practical 
value of her summer's work, as compared with 
that which she had previously been doing in the 
field of domestic science? That, she replied, was 
for me to determine. Perhaps, when I thought it 
all over, some such bearing would occur to me. 
I was afraid that she was going to be disap- 
pointed in me, after all, and hastened to change 
the subject by inquiring why, since the afternoon 
was so fine, she was wearing her long oilskin coat 
and sou'wester hat. It was certainly a becoming 
costume, although it too much concealed her 
trim figure — her color was now all that could 
be desired. 

" ' Oh, I don't work in the laboratory all of the 
time,' she answered. 'I — that is, we — are going 
sailing.' Just at that moment the importunate 
mate's 'All aboard' precluded further leave-tak- 
ing. But as I watched her from the deck of the 

[ -66 ] 



Professor Maturin 

receding steamer, after a farewell wave of the 
hand, turn expectantly toward a jaunty sail-boat 
that was skimming in the direction of the pier 
under the guidance of one of the younger pro- 
fessors, I began to have glimmerings of at least 
one answer to my question." 



[ '6 7 ] 



XVIII 

Measuring the Mi?id 

WHEN Professor Maturin discovered that 
his young friend Portia had become a stu- 
dent of psychology, he expressed no surprise, 
having learned where she was concerned to 
expedt the unexpected. But he did voice his 
impression that the science was one that had, 
as yet, but an imperfect appreciation of the fem- 
inine mind. " Precisely," replied Portia; "listen 
to this," and opening one of her note-books, she 
read: "Our modern knowledge of woman rep- 
resents her as primitive, conservative, nearer the 
savage than man. She is lighter, weaker, slower, 
less dexterous, less accurate, less individual. She 
is more nervous, more emotional, more supersti- 
tious, and more often insane. In short, her lack 
of accomplishment is due not to subje&ion, but 
to fundamental inferiority." 

"Now that," concluded Portia, "was undoubt- 
edly written by a man, and is therefore probably 
as mistaken as what men have usually written 
about women in novels and poems. At any rate, 
I intend to see for myself." Professor Maturin 
immediately commended her intention, and sub- 

[ '68 ] 



Professor Maturin 

sequently followed her progress with an interest 
which, after a time, she rewarded by an invita- 
tion to visit the laboratory where she was work- 
ing. It was not long, by the way, before she dis- 
covered that, although the particular statements 
of the German scientist she had quoted were in 
the main correct, an obsession of the Kaiser's 
"church, children, cooking, and clothes" doc- 
trine had made him ignore equally striking facts 
on the other side. Her other discoveries shall be 
given in Professor Maturin's own words. "As we 
started on our expedition she read me a counter 
quotation, from an even more famous authority: 
'Woman is more observant, more assimilative, 
more sympathetic, more intuitional, more aes- 
thetic, and more moral than man. She is more 
typical of the race and nearer the superman of 
the future. Man in comparison is senile, if not 
decadent.' 

"My burst of admiration for a science that 
could solve the same problem in such opposite 
ways, was checked by Portia's remarking that 
she attributed scarcely more importance to the 
latter than to the former statement. She was 
quite in accord with the directors of her labora- 
tory, in considering much of what calls itself 
psychology to be based on philosophic deduction 

[ '69 ] 



The Observations of 

or popular generalization, rather than on scien- 
tific observation and experiment. As a matter of 
fad, scientific psychology, as a development of 
the present generation, was just beginning to find 
its accumulated fads sufficient for any general- 
ization. This statement gave me a sense of en- 
tering a theatre just as the curtain was going up. 

"After a glimpse at the general arrangement 
of the department's score or more of rooms, Por- 
tia proceeded to lead me systematically through 
the suite devoted to physiological psychology. 
Concerning the sense of smell, little seemed to 
be known, except that it is sufficiently sensitive 
to detect a thimbleful of odorous gas diffused 
through a very large room. Not much more is 
known concerning taste, except that it can be 
stimulated electrically, as smell cannot be, and 
that sweet and sour are distinguished chiefly by 
the tip of the tongue; bitter and salt by the back. 

"But discoveries in physics have made pos- 
sible extensive studies of sound sensation. The 
average ear has a compass for sounds of from 
twenty-eight vibrations a second to twenty-two 
thousand, and can detect differences caused by a 
variation of sixty. The figures for sight are even 
more surprising. The sensation of red is caused by 
rays of light which vibrate from four hundred and 

[ l l° ] 



Professor Maturin 

forty to four hundred and seventy billion times a 
second. At this stage of my observations, I aban- 
doned my memory for a pencil and note-book. 
Increasingly rapid vibrations produce the other 
colors, up to violet, which is caused by about 
seven hundred and twenty-two billions. 

"It is not surprising, therefore, that the sense 
of sight displays considerable inertia. It takes 
a perceptible time for the eye to see what is 
before it, and its images persist after the object is 
removed or the eye is closed. Such after-images 
are at times like the object, but show its comple- 
mentary color if the sense is fatigued. This last 
fa& is said to be taken advantage of by depart- 
ment-store salesmen, who change fabrics ofwhich 
their customers are wearied for others comple- 
mentary in color. Pressure and temperature are 
felt only at certain spots on the body, very close 
together, but quite unevenly distributed. The 
forehead and the back, for example, are more sen-^ 
sitive to cold than to heat. Some spots are sensi- 
tive to heat or cold alone, seeming to indicate 
separate sets of nerves for these sensations. 

"The lower limits of any sensation may be 
determined by gradually diminishing a stimu- 
lus until its effect is not noted, or by increasing 
a smaller stimulus until a sensation is produced. 

t '7' ] 



The Observations of 

Delicacy of perception is measured by noting the 
smallest increase or decrease of stimulus needed 
to produce a change in sensation. Some persons 
can distinguish, by touch, a difference of half an 
ounce in a pound weight. Measured by the dis- 
tance apart at which the points of a divider can 
be separately felt, the cheek is but half as sensi- 
tive as the finger, the finger but half as sensitive 
as the tongue. Hence, it is probably in order to 
touch as well as to taste that infants carry every- 
thing to the mouth. The direction of sounds is 
determined by the difference in the relative in- 
tensity of the sensation in the two ears; the posi- 
tion of the body, when the eyes are closed, is 
somehow felt by means of semi-circular canals 
in the ear. Measured by moving a candle away 
from an object until its shadow seems the same 
as that produced by a fixed candle, or by rotat- 
ing disks bearing black lines on white, the eye 
can distinguish a difference of one one-hundredth 
in a quantity of light. Judging distance by sight 
is said to involve at least ten separate operations 
of perception and judgment, vision being really 
mental interpretation, based on association and 
memory as well as on sensation. Hence, errors 
in visual perception are so common that paint- 
ers, sculptors, and architects always take them 

[ x 72 ] 



Professor Maturin 

into account. Estimates of distance with one eye 
alone are usually inaccurate ; vertical seem longer 
than horizontal distances. The size of small 
objects and the speed of larger ones are usu- 
ally underestimated; the speed of small bodies 
and the size of larger ones, exaggerated. Yet, in 
judgment of space, sight is more accurate than 
touch. 

" The most interesting rooms of this series 
were those devoted to measuring the time of ner- 
vous and mental processes, by means of compli- 
cated and delicate machinery, electrical for the 
most part, and arranged so as to cause certain 
sense impressions, and to record the time between 
these and a response in some form of motion. 
Each experiment is repeated many times, with 
the same person, and with many persons, in order 
to eliminate errors due to inertia of after-impres- 
sions, to expectation or practice, to surprise or 
fatigue. In even so simple a procedure as press- 
ing an electric button with one hand on feeling 
a touch on the other, nearly a dozen distinct ele- 
ments were considered — stimulus of the sense 
organ, conduction through nerve and through 
brain, reception and transformation of the im- 
pulse, reconduction through brain and through 
nerve, and, finally, muscular action. The speed 

[ *73 ] 



The Observations of 

of nerve transmission being known as from one 
hundred and fifty to two hundred feet a second, 
it is possible to deduce the approximate rate of 
mental reception and action. It is not flattering 
to learn that electricity is about one thousand 
times as quick. The total reaction from hand to 
hand occupies from one-tenth to one-fifth of a 
second ; the ear has approximately the same rate 
of action; the eye is about one-fourth slower. The 
mind's interpretation of sensation averages about 
one-twenty-fifth of a second ; its determination 
to act, a shade less. 

"It takes less time to perceive color and form 
than letters or words, and all of these differ 
among themselves. The number three seems a 
sort of natural unit, it being almost as easy to 
perceive three objects at once, as one; it is much 
harder to perceive four. The imaginative repro- 
duction of an image requires about one-fourth of 
a second; the association of abstract ideas, about 
three times as long — all according to the previ- 
ous alteration or multiplication of the six hun- 
dred million or more brain cells which are the 
average individual's stock in trade. 

"The numerical records of all such, experi- 
ments are transformed graphically into diagrams, 
whose bases represent the number of experi- 

[ '74] 



Professor Maturin 

ments, and whose heights represent the varying 
accomplishment. Such surfaces of frequency, as 
they are called, show at a glance the entire per- 
formance of the trait studied, and are therefore 
much superior to the ordinary method of aver- 
ages. The intellectual average of a town that 
contained a university and an insane asylum 
would be about that of a town that had neither. 
A diagram, however, would show not only the 
average, but the much more significant distri- 
bution. Attention is also paid to the 'mode,' or 
measure that occurs most frequently, and to the 
' median,' or record above and below which half 
of the measurements lie. Then, by calculating 
the average deviation from the average, and cer- 
tain similar ratios, it is possible finally to obtain 
a small group of figures which contain the es- 
sence of the entire distribution. This, in turn, 
makes possible the measurement and the com- 
parison not only of particular mental functions, 
but of the characteristic ability of individuals 
and of groups. In this way, for example, it has 
been found that mental activities vary in much 
the same manner as do the functions of most of 
the natural organs that have been measured by 
biologists, anthropologists, and physicians. In 
general, two-thirds of all mental performances 

[ '75 ] 



The Observations of 

lie within the middle third of ability. Average 
efficiency is very near to the most common, 
and both lie about half-way between the two 
extremes. 

"Perhaps the most striking result of such 
study is the discovery, by means of a large 
number of measurements, that mental functions 
are much more independent of one another than 
is usually thought, and that a change in one 
fundion alters another only so far as the two 
have identical elements. There is, for example, 
only a slight correlation between remembering 
numbers and remembering words, and no per- 
ceptible relation between perception of time and 
perception of rhythm, or between sense percep- 
tion in general and memory. Judged from the 
grades given by instructors to several thousand 
school and college students, the natural sciences 
are closer to Latin, in the kind of ability they 
require, than they are to mathematics. Algebra 
and geometry are almost as different from one 
another as mathematics in general are from non- 
mathematical subje&s. 

"Such facts certainly seemed to warrant the 
conclusions of the professor to whose guidance 
Portia now consigned me: 'The mind is not a 
functional unit, nor even a collection of general 

[ '?6 ] 



Professor Maturin 

faculties which work irrespective of particular 
material. It is rather a multitude of separate 
fun&ions, each closely related to only a few of 
the others, and to most in so slight a degree as 
to elude measurement. It is impossible to infer 
success in one field from success in another, or 
success in an entire subject from success in a 
part of it. To estimate the general ability of any 
individual requires the separate measurement of 
traits sufficiently numerous and well-chosen to 
represent fairly all of his capacities. By means 
of such specific measurements, however, we can 
determine pretty definitely an individual's capa- 
bility for any of the highly specialized activities, 
such as music or painting.' 

"The rooms devoted to the study of genetic 
psychology, or mental development, contained 
much interesting data concerning the mental life 
of children, collected usually through very sim- 
ple tests, such as estimating the size of geomet- 
rical figures, the length of lines, or the duration 
of sounds; arranging in graduation a series of 
weights, or the shades of a color; or recalling 
series of related or unrelated letters or words. 
While the material thus obtained seems to in- 
dicate the existence of certain general laws of 
mental growth, it is not yet considered suffi- 

[ l ll ] 



The Observations of 

cient to establish them. The implications are that 
the masculine mind is slightly more variable, 
the feminine slightly better in perception; and 
that the relation between early and later ability 
is one not of antagonism, but of resemblance. 

"I wished that I might linger over the studies 
of rapidity of movement, tested by tapping; and 
of precision, tested by drawing lines in a narrow, 
intricate path, or by tapping in a small circle 
without touching the sides; and I would gladly 
have spent a day examining the ingenious con- 
trivances for recording and measuring the atten- 
tion demanded and the emotions aroused by dif- 
ferent sorts of reading. But our time was growing 
so short that I was hurried on, after only a glimpse 
at a mass of material that would have delighted 
or distressed — I had not time to learn wmich — 
the heart of a spelling reformer — the records of 
the spelling of thirty-three thousand children! In 
this connection the professor remarked that his 
own experiments had convinced him that good 
spelling depended not on memory or on observa- 
tion in general, but upon a certain specific ability 
to notice small differences in words, by means 
of sight, hearing, or, in the case of the blind, 
through touch. 

"In the next, so-called 'heredity room' were 

1 178 ] 



Professor Maturin 

records showing that children of the same parents 
are slightly more like one another than they are 
like the average, in height, color of eyes and hair, 
and in all the mental traits that have been studied 
in this conne&ion. The physical traits of parents 
tend to alternate, their mental traits to blend, 
among their children. Eminent men are almost 
always found to have near relatives of eminence. 
Family resemblances are most marked in traits, 
like musical ability, that are least afFe&ed by en- 
vironment. Here, too, were the life histories of 
many twins, showing that those closely alike at 
birth and in early rearing usually remained so in 
spite of later changes in environment; and that 
those unlike at birth remained so in spite of iden- 
tity of nurture. From such and similar fa6ts the 
department drew the conclusions that nature pre- 
dominates greatly over nurture, that inheritance 
is specialized rather than general, and from the 
original nature of the parents rather than from 
acquired traits. 

"Individuals who are subjected to the influ- 
ence of a particular environment are usually so 
much more influenced by the forces that select 
them for that environment, that accurate know- 
ledge in this field is obtainable only with diffi- 
culty. The fad, for example, that most Congress- 

[ *79 ] 



The Observations of 

men are college graduates is probably due not so 
much to their education as to their early giving 
evidence of ability that demanded such train- 
ing. In the words of the professor: 'The fa&or of 
selection is commonly neglected, the influence 
of environment commonly overestimated. En- 
vironment does not create, but merely selects and 
stimulates natural abilities. About all that educa- 
tion can do is to supply facilities for and remove 
obstacles to the growth of the brain, encourage 
desirable activities by making them pleasurable, 
and inhibit their opposites by making them un- 
comfortable. Mental hygiene, opportunity, and 
incentive are the foundations of the teacher's 
Blackstone.' 

"I was prepared to be impressed most of all 
by what Portia called the 'human-nature room,' 
for here were printed records of many studies 
based on answers to widely circulated 'question- 
naires.' From one set it was deduced that half of 
us have favorite sounds, open vowels and liquid 
consonants leading; one-fourth are fond of par- 
ticular words, 'murmur' being the choice of the 
majority; most people are fond of particular 
names, 'Helen ' being the prime favorite. Similar 
records showed that women read more than men, 
but reach the period of maximum reading sooner, 

[ 180] 



Professor Maturin 

the greatest reading age being about twenty, the 
average amount small after thirty-five, most 
people reading for emotional rather than intel- 
lectual reasons. Yet others indicated that muscu- 
lar power increases and attention decreases in 
summer, the mind being at its best from Decem- 
ber until April. 

"I was concluding that here was a very mine 
of richness for the novelist, when the professor 
remarked: 'We attribute small importance to 
this sort of thing. Conclusions based on reports 
from artificially sele&ed and incompetent ob- 
servers and combined in an unscientific manner 
have no general validity. Only direcl: expert ob- 
servation of representative cases, and accurate 
statistical study of all the factors involved, can 
bring reliable results. We may base our educa- 
tional ideals on philosophic or popular theories, 
but our study of the nature of mind and the 
ways of arTe&ing it, to be at all valuable, must 
be rigidly scientific' 

"Well, I had learned enough and to spare 
without these suggestive, if inaccurate, observa- 
tions of general human nature, and without even 
looking into certain rooms, where zoologists and 
psychologists united in studying the develop- 
ment of mind in the animal world. 

[ 181 ] 



Professor Maturin 

"'I presume,' I remarked to Portia as we left 
the building, 'that when you come to consider 
suitors for your daughters, you will inquire into 
not their social and financial standing, but their 
personal equations of perception and motor- 
a&ivity, and request statistics concerning the 
central tendency and variability of each of their 
mental and moral traits'? ' ' Undoubtedly,' she re- 
plied, 'and I should want to know similar fadls 
for their parents, and also the details of their 
reaction to humidity and to heat.' 

"'Shall you require similar data concerning 
the prospective father of those daughters?' I 
asked. 'Perhaps,' she concluded; 'but consider- 
ing the present undeveloped state of the science, 
I should insist on conducting those investigations 
myself. Just now I have no time for such experi- 
ments. I must to a le&ure. Good-bye.' 

"Thus Portia left me to proceed to my lunch 
and to cogitate alone, a more confirmed perfe&i- 
bilian than ever, marvelling at the achievement 
of this generation, and half prepared to accept 
as true an inscription that I had seen in the last 
room we visited: 'Psychology has a message to 
the world, richer and more original than that of 
the Renaissance.'" 

[ 182 ] 



XIX 

The Club of the Bachelor Maids 

PROFESSOR Maturin told me that he 
was convinced, after very brief cogitation, 
that no one but his young friend Portia could 
have caused him to receive the impressively 
simple card which lay before him, reading: 
"The Pleasure of your Company is requested 
at the First Annual Gentlemen's Day at the 
Club of the Bachelor Maids." Therefore, before 
dispatching his acknowledgment to the house 
committee, he wrote to Portia that he should be 
more than happy to accept the invitation if she 
would be good enough to accompany him and 
see him safely through. To this she acceded 
with a promptness that implied her anticipation 
of the suggestion; and so the designated after- 
noon found them entering the portal together. I 
quote the account of his experiences as exa&ly 
as I can remember it. 

"The house, which had been remodelled out 
of two dwellings in the fifties near the avenue, 
was very interestingly although simply furnished, 
in colonial fashion for the most part. There was 
a spacious public room with tapestried walls and 

[ '83 ] 



The Observations of 

wicker furniture, a library and a reading-room 
with home-like fireplaces, and an extensive lunch 
and dinner room in mahogany and cream. I 
understood that there were also Turkish baths 
in the basement, and a sun parlor and a garden 
on the roof, but these were not shown. 

"When I turned my attention from the fur- 
nishings to the company which had assembled 
in the larger rooms, I realized the truth of a 
recent observation that our American women 
are steadily improving in personal appearance. 
There was never, to be sure, any crying need for 
such improvement. Yet, after examining the por- 
traits of early American women by Copley, West, 
and Stuart, hung in the dinner-room, or the loan 
colle&ion of Malbone and Staigg miniatures in 
the library, it was impossible not to be forcibly 
struck by the living faces about them. Whether 
due to the operation of natural selection or to our 
national crossing of races, to modern intellectual 
advancement or to contemporary social empha- 
sis on better air, food, and exercise, I cannot 
say. But the superiority of the modern women in 
symmetry and grace, delicacy and modulation 
of coloring, and in variety and individuality of 
expression, was beyond question. The splendid 
carriage of many of the guests and their refined 

[ '8 4 j 



Professor Maturin 

voices, Mr. Henry James to the contrary not- 
withstanding, were a delight at the moment, and 
have been a pleasant memory ever since. 

"Portia was so much pleased at my pleasure, 
that she was quite willingly drawn to a recess 
whence I could look and where she could elu- 
cidate without interruption. There she told me 
what she could concerning the possessors of such 
aesthetic mouths, lustrous eyes, and autumn- 
tinted hair as especially fascinated my gaze. 

" I ventured also to inquire about the wearers 
of particular gowns, for even my masculine eye 
could perceive, here and there, certain rare har- 
monies of costume with appearance and bearing, 
and I was flattered to be told of almost every 
person who thus attracted my attention that she 
was generally thought to be especially interest- 
ing. Whereupon I jotted down in my pilgrim's 
scrip the observation that, in spite of fashion, 
dress may yet sometimes become a subtle ex- 
pression of personality. Portia, indeed, told me 
that fashion troubled some of these ladies so little 
that one of them had made an aphorism to the 
effect that 'Individual women are seldom in fash- 
ion; they are usually in advance of it.' Which 
saying I remembered instead of my own. 

"This phrase and its maker, a gifted designer 

[ '8 5 ] 



The Observations of 

of jewelry, deflected our conversation to the sub- 
ject of occupations, it being a qualification for 
membership in the club that 'one must be some- 
body or do something for one's self,' as Portia 
put it; a requirement more strictly enforced than 
that of the celibacy implied by the name of the 
organization. As one member and another ap- 
peared or passed with her guests, Portia singled 
out for me the architect and the decorator who 
had planned and furnished the house, and then 
the florist who had arranged the decorations, and 
the caterer who had provided the unique refresh- 
ments of the day. There were also numerous li- 
brarians and settlement workers, two successful 
real estate operators, and the manager of an im- 
portant branch of the office work of a huge life 
insurance company. One handsome, middle-aged 
woman, that I took to be one of the philanthropic 
patrons who had made the club's equipment pos- 
sible, Portia singled out as a practitioner of what 
struck me as the most interesting profession of all 
— a department store critic. It was her function 
to make a daily survey of every part of one of 
our immense emporiums in order, from her ob- 
servation, her knowledge of other shops, and of 
their patrons' tastes, to make suggestions for im- 
provements in stock, display, or service. I saw 

[ .86] 



Professor Maturin 

also a number of artists and authors, reviewers 
and publishers' readers. In one of the rooms an 
excellent programme was being rendered by sev- 
eral members representative of a musical group, 
which alternated with similar literary, artistic, 
and dramatic coteries, in providing entertain- 
ment for a series of weekly club evenings 
throughout the winter. 

"Upon my making particular inquiry con- 
cerning such of the club's members as were 
graduates of our colleges for women, Portia for a 
time devoted her attention to representatives of 
that class. A number of these, naturally enough, 
were college instructors. Several were physicians 
and hospital officials; one, an attorney, was proba- 
tion officer in a juvenile court; two were on the 
editorial staff of newspapers. Many found regu- 
lar employment in religious or philanthropic 
enterprises; only one was in business — as as- 
sistant to the secretary of a large electrical com- 
pany. 

"When I was unoriginal enough to ask the 
conventional question concerning the general 
attitude of college women toward marriage, Por- 
tia gave what I instantly recognized as the only 
possible answer, inconclusive as it was: the col- 
lege woman was as yet too recent a phenomenon 

[ '87 ] 



The Observations of 

for any generalization about her to be safe. The 
particular question of her attitude to marriage 
could be solved only by the well-nigh impos- 
sible process of comparing equal groups of 
college and non-college women of the same so- 
cial kind. Such indications as there were showed 
no great differences, except perhaps that college 
women were likely to marry somewhat later. 

"Indeed, I found that the club was intended, 
for one thing, to be a sort of outpost for studying 
and, if need be, aiding the solution of just such 
problems in the economic and social life of wo- 
men, 'especially of such as would go a-career- 
ing,' in the words of the phrase-maker. Among 
the many announcements on a bulletin board, I 
saw that a well-known litterateur — or should one 
say litteratrice % — was to speak on Madame de 
Stael, George Sand, and Mrs. Browning; a phi- 
lanthropist on Madame Roland and the Count- 
ess Schimmelmann; a psychologist on Marie 
Bashkirtserfand Mary Mac Lean. And there were 
lists of conferences on physiology and hygiene, 
sociology and economics, and religion and phi- 
lanthropy, in addition to announcements of the 
weekly entertainments already mentioned. 

"Another bulletin bore an equal number of 
announcements of all sorts of outside recrea- 

[ '88 ] 



Professor Maturin 

tions, from the opera and sele&ed theatres to 
golf and Adirondack camps. 

"In all of its activities the organization dis- 
played not only the same energy but also the 
same breadth of view. The cant of sentimental- 
ity and the anti-cant of grievance were alike con- 
spicuously absent. The club picture gallery in- 
cluded Rossetti's 'Blessed Damozel'and Alma- 
Tadema's ' Cleopatra,' as well as portraits of Su- 
san B. Anthony and the Countess of Warwick. 
Its library contained social studies as unlike as 
Aristophanes' 'Ladies in Parliament' and Mary 
Wollstonecraft's 'Vindication of the Rights of 
Women ; ' and philosophic deductions as opposed 
as Comte's 'Worship of Women' and Schopen- 
hauer's 'Woman as Insufficient Reason.' The 
only piece of militant feminism anywhere to be 
seen was one of a series of inscriptions on oaken 
panels: 

Women have risen to high excellence 

In every art whereto they give their care. 

On closer inspection, I found this to be a quota- 
tion from Ariosto. Beside it was an inscription 
from Herbert Spencer which read: 'If women 
comprehended all that is contained in the do- 
mestic sphere, they would ask no other.' That the 
club realized the humorous as well as the seri- 

[ '89 ] 



The Observations of 

ous suggestion of such juxtaposition was proved 
by one of the mantelpieces, where rested side by 
side an effigy of Egypt's great queen Hatasu, 
and a fragment of a Roman matron's epitaph, 
reading, 'She stayed at home and span.' 

"When I asked Portia to what conclusions, 
if any, her club life had led her, she confessed 
to only a few, and those very tentative. As com- 
pared with the married women of her acquaint- 
ance whose cultivation was equal to that of her 
fellow club members, most of the latter appeared 
over-serious, self-distrustful, or inconsistent. A 
few seemed to find full activity and satisfaction 
in careers for which they obviously possessed 
decided gifts. But the majority, after a certain 
eagerness for experience and self-realization had 
become satisfied, seemed to be but half-heartedly 
filling in their time while anticipating or desir- 
ing something else. This attitude, together with 
the census statistics, appeared to indicate that the 
chief career for the great majority of women was 
still through marriage. Whether it was becoming 
less so for the kind of women the club comprised, 
and if this were the case, what was the alternative 
— these were among the questions upon which 
the organization held itself open to convi&ion. 

" For herself, Portia was happy still to be in 
[ J 9° ] 



Professor Maturin 

the mood of acquisition : there were many things 
that she was eager to learn and to experience be- 
fore it became time to inquire what she was going 
to be. As yet she had got no further than realizing 
that, while being a bachelor woman seemed to 
have obvious limitations, it was surely extremely 
pleasant to be a bachelor maid. 

"I very honestly replied that, considering her 
youth and her opportunities, I would not have 
her feel differently — certainly not at present." 



[ >9« ] 



XX 

A Small College 

PROFESSOR Maturin has always ques- 
tioned the somewhat popular belief that the 
small college, once so important, is about to dis- 
appear between the portentously rumbling upper 
and nether millstones of the universities and the 
public schools. He was therefore more than glad 
to accept, in the form of an invitation to visit 
a professorial friend at a country college, an op- 
portunity to see for himself. 

During two hundred express-train miles away 
from the metropolis, and twenty more deliberate 
ones away from the main line, he thought a good 
deal about the matter, not without regret that the 
German ideal of specialized scholarship should 
completely overcome the English ideal of gen- 
eral culture. After the professor's cordial greet- 
ings, conversation at once turned to this topic. 
The professor, however, was so unapprehensive 
that he claimed attention rather for the attractive 
situation of his town, after remarking that, as a 
matter of fad, the small colleges were increasing 
in attendance and resources much more rapidly, 
in proportion, than the great universities. His 

[ J 92 ] 



Professor Maturin 

own college, in the last five years, had enlarged 
its endowment from three hundred thousand to 
nearly a million dollars, and its attendance from 
two to nearly four hundred students. Five hun- 
dred was to be the limit, the president and his 
faculty being unanimous in believing that no 
college should be too large to give attention to 
every student every day in every class. "This 
was sufficiently reassuring," said Professor Ma- 
turin, as he told me about it, "to permit my at- 
tending comfortably to my surroundings, which 
were indeed charming." I continue the account 
in his own words. 

" The college campus stretched along the main 
street, at the southern end of the town — a large 
rectangle of wonderful greensward, resulting 
from the English recipe of watering for a hundred 
years, and guarded by a small army of enormous 
elms that must have been already in occupation 
when the tract was bought from the provincial 
proprietors, in the early years of the republic. 
Here stood the two buildings that accommodated 
all the academic and domestic life of the college 
during its first half century. Both of native lime- 
stone, with softer brownstone trimmings, the 
older was a notable example of the best Amer- 
ican public architecture of an hundred years 

[ J 93 ] 



The Observations of 

ago. The dozen other buildings nearby were sim- 
ilarly landmarks in the later history of the in- 
stitution. 

" The brownstone and dark brick chapel gave 
its lower floor to the libraries of the college and 
the literary societies, w T hich made a total of about 
forty thousand volumes, some of them purchased 
and imported in bulk by the founders of the col- 
lege. For student use the collection seemed quite 
adequate, not indeed for specialization, but cer- 
tainly for the fundamental, general training for 
which the college stood. The work of the fresh- 
man and sophomore years consisted largely of 
required subjects, the junior and senior years 
largely of electives. This system, long in vogue, 
proved most acceptable, particularly to such 
graduates as my friend the professor, who had 
taken in college, Latin, Greek, French, and Ger- 
man; much English, some history, and a little 
economics; geology, physics, chemistry, physi- 
ology, and hygiene; mathematics up to and in- 
cluding calculus and astronomy; logic, psychol- 
ogy, ethics, and an introduction to philosophy — 
surely a broad foundation for his subsequent 
specialization in history. Later experience made 
him wish that he had studied also biology, sociol- 
ogy, and something of music and the fine arts. 

[ *94 ] 



Professor Maturin 

The first two of these were now provided by the 
institution. 

"I had long heard of the president of the col- 
lege as a distinguished clergyman and a more 
than kindly man. My first meeting with him left 
an impression of rarely mingled strength and 
fineness that every subsequent conversation but 
confirmed and deepened. I saw most of the pro- 
fessors, next morning, ranged on the chapel plat- 
form, and I subsequently learned to know all of 
them, either personally, or through my friend's 
characterizations. This acquaintance was entirely 
in rebuttal of the charge that all professors belong 
to the mutually exclusive classes of those who 
know their subjects and those who love their stu- 
dents. These professors, almost to a man, man- 
aged to do both. The amount of wise and kindly 
personal consideration given to every student 
was little short of incredible, and had notable re- 
sults in both character and culture. A better-man- 
nered set of undergraduates I never saw, and this 
in spite of the fad that the freshmen indicated, 
for the most part, that the college had to work 
with more than ordinarily raw material. Some- 
thing in the atmosphere added a fineness to the 
prevailing vigor, which delighted the eyes of a 
visitor accustomed to city anaemia, and produced 

[ '95 ] 



The Observations of 

a host of generous customs like doffing the hat 
to professors and standing in chapel while the 
president passed. 

" I could not see that my friend's very consid- 
erable scholarship was hindered by the obligation 
that he felt to know the name and something of 
the nature of each of his students. Indeed, I think 
that it was rather helped. His intellectual life had 
a freedom from dreaminess, on the one hand, and 
from pedantry, on the other, that I could attribute 
to no other cause. Such constant and intimate 
contact w T ith youthful immaturity and ignorance 
would probably cause deterioration in a man of 
inferior ability and training, but my friend was 
both able and well trained, and so were most of 
his colleagues. His college course had been im- 
mediately followed by a year at one American 
university, and two years at another. Then, after 
an interval of teaching, he had had six months in 
England and a year and a half on the Continent, 
finishing in Germany with a doctor's degree and 
a dissertation of real historical value. The others 
had had similar experiences, the language men, 
particularly, having enjoyed prolonged foreign 
residence. 

"I was interested to learn that the head of the 
department of English, although an inspiring 

[ '96 ] 



Professor Maturin 

teacher and a writer of originality and distinction, 
had never been to college at all, but had gained 
his training and had amassed his really notable 
scholarship entirely through private instruction, 
individual reading, and extensive travel, and had 
come to his professorship only after a successful 
career as a critic and an editor. I was sufficiently 
impressed by this to inquire of the president how 
he avoided the requirement I had heard more 
than one university officer make, that every in- 
structor should be the possessor of a doctor's de- 
gree. He answered almost abruptly: 'In selecting 
our staff, as everything else, we try to ignore the 
union label. It is always the sign of the conven- 
tional, and the conventional, especially in the 
humanities, too often means the mediocre.' And 
then he changed the subject. That was surely radi- 
cal educational doctrine, but in this case, at least, 
it was certainly justified by the results. 

"In fine, the faculty seemed to me quite equal 
to the average of a university staff, and, because 
of their constant accessibility, appeared to be con- 
siderably more influential as teachers of imma- 
ture students. 

" Most of the professors lived near the college. 
My friend was the owner of an attractive small 
house, with a bit of ground, opposite the campus, 

[ l 91 ] 



The Observations of 

computing the entire carrying cost at less than 
three hundred dollars a year. Adequate food and 
service were equally available and cheap. 'In- 
deed, I have,' he said, very earnestly, — I take 
pains to quote him exactly, — 4 I have the small- 
est quarrel that it is possible to have with the 
academic income. Ours is not the ill fortune of 
those professors who suffer privation because am- 
bitious presidents and business-like trustees agree 
that advertising is better than instruction, and 
spend on unessential but showy buildings funds 
that would relieve the men on their staff from 
financial anxieties distra£ting in themselves and 
occasioning those efforts to earn from outside 
sources which so often seriously undermine a 
professor's academic usefulness, if not his intel- 
lectual and physical health. We manage to live 
on the two thousand dollars which is the pro- 
fessorial stipend here, knowing that proportion 
of the income of the college to be a generous 
proof of its belief in the primary importance of 
instruction. We decrease the numerator to suit 
the denominator. We seek the simplest food, 
clothing, and furnishings; reduce service to a 
minimum; buy fewer books; take shorter vaca- 
tions; give less to charity, and nothing to pub- 
lic causes. Not being able to have what we want, 

[ i98 ] 



Professor Maturin 

we succeed pretty well in enjoying what we have, 
sustained by the intellectual and moral satisfac- 
tions of our calling — except sometimes. We, 
of course, become accustomed to the humiliat- 
ing knowledge that the public does not consider 
our labor and devotion worth paying highly for. 
But the realization that the meagreness of our 
incomes, by more and more separating our lives 
from those of other men, is steadily decreasing 
our usefulness and influence — that is at times 
hard to bear. 

" • So far as living in a small town is concerned, 
save for the spice of variety which one may store 
up in vacation, it furnishes ideal nourishment for 
the intellectual life. The time at one's command 
seems almost inexhaustible, and there are prac- 
tically no distractions. Our social circle is lim- 
ited, but interesting. Lacking the opera, our ladies 
become fair pianists. In place of museums of art, 
they have a club that studies art appreciation and 
history. Instead of going to the theatre, we read 
and talk of books, of which we know a few well 
rather than many slightly. Being devoid of the 
opportunity and hence free from the obligation 
of winnowing the current ephemera of my spe- 
cialty, I am constantly occupied, instead, with 
the monumental, permanent contributions to the 

[ x 99 ] 



The Observations of 

subject. One cannot do both things, and I am 
content with my enforced choice.' 

"The students were unquestionably gainers by 
their rural environment. They evidently studied 
a great deal, that being the most interesting oc- 
cupation available. The cheapness of the place 
enabled many of them to obtain for a low tuition 
and a ridiculously low cost of living, a training 
they would elsewhere have been unable to pay 
for. For recreation they spent much time in the 
gymnasium, on the athletic field, and wandering 
far through the charming surrounding country. 
There was a not unhealthy amount of what is 
known as college and class spirit, with the nu- 
merous traditional customs thereto attendant. 

" I could not see that the fraternities, which 
played a large part in the student life, did any- 
thing more than give to natural tastes and tend- 
encies an organization that helped the student 
to see qualities, and the faculty to watch defe&s, 
in the mass. The religious life of the place im- 
pressed me as abundant and powerful, but in 
no way overstrained. When I saw some of the 
young ladies whose habit it was to be at home 
to students on Friday evenings, I wished myself 
a youth again. The boys repaid their kindness in 
many ways, not the least pleasing of which was 

[ 200 



Professor Maturin 

the serenading which invariably followed the 
closing of the fraternity meetings, which were 
held from ten o'clock to midnight on the night 
preceding the weekly holiday — a custom that 
seemed to satisfy the youthful desire to a& very 
much grown up, at the small price of conse- 
quent sleepiness. The healthy spirit of the place 
frowned on actual dissipation. 

"Thinking over my visit, during the return 
journey, I realized that the whole question of 
the relative usefulness of the metropolitan uni- 
versity and the rural college reduces to an esti- 
mate of the comparative values of the large and 
the small, the near and the remote, of efficiency 
and culture. Our national environment and his- 
tory have emphasized the importance of the 
large, the immediate, the efficient. But there is 
always much to be said on both sides of every 
question, and it is at least possible that enough 
importance has not been attributed to the small, 
the distinctive, the fine. 

"On the whole," concluded Professor Ma- 
turin, " I am inclined to disagree with my friends 
in the universities, and to believe that the future 
of the small college is bright rather than dark." 



[ 201 ] 



XXI 

Old 'Town Revisited 

1 FOUND Professor Maturin, the other even- 
ing, recently returned from a visit to the home 
of his youth with a bundle of such pleasant mem- 
ories that I set them down as nearly in his own 
words as possible, without any of the inquiries 
and the interruptions of appreciation that they 
inevitably drew from me. 

"In the first part of the journey thither, re- 
peated efforts failed to conjure up anything like 
a full and definite pi&ure of the place. But, sud- 
denly, as so often happens, the mists of memory 
cleared, and it seemed as though I had never 
been away. This almost theatrical change caus- 
ing me to look about with surprise, I became 
quickly aware that the train had swung into the 
beginning of what we used to call 'The Happy 
Valley.' With a sigh of content, I sank back into 
the comfort of old adjustments, with a sense of 
their completeness that could come only from a 
knowledge of later maladjustments to compare 
them with. 

"This valley, perhaps a hundred miles long 
and from a dozen to a score of miles wide, is 

202 



Professor Maturin 

walled in by blue mountain ridges of from twelve 
to two thousand feet in height, their bases sweep- 
ing nearer or farther and their sky-lines higher 
or lower in a series of almost symmetrical curves. 
The same restrained variety characterizes the 
surface of the valley, which billows and rolls 
throughout like a solidified section of mid-ocean. 
The mountains, foothills, and small patches of 
the valley are still covered with oak and chest- 
nut, pine and cedar timber, which make spring- 
time delightful and the autumn splendid. Else- 
where all is fertile farm land, squarely fenced or 
marked with low walls of ever available lime- 
stone, which also provides firm, smooth roads 
stretching in every dire&ion over hill and 
meadow. Many farm-houses and barns are built 
of this stone, softened with the mellowness of 
years. Later structures of local brick with slate 
roofs seem scarcely less sturdy. 

"This same pleasant variety of surface and 
solidity of building characterizes the town itself. 
Cheerful two-and-one-half story houses, of red 
brick, with green shutters still prevail, although 
about the central square and along the business 
blocks the height is usually greater. I well re- 
member the builder of the first three-story house 
in town. The first four-story structure was reared 

[ 20 3 ] 



The Observations of 

in my boyhood. Its completion was celebrated 
with fire-works and the first ele&ric lights seen 
in the town. Now there are even cut-stone bank 
fronts, and they are building an apartment house 
and a five-story department store. Near the edges 
of the town, where the dwellings stand back from 
the streets with lawns and flowers and trees, the 
march of improvement is particularly noticeable 
— as indeed it well might be, for the place has 
doubled in size since I left. 

"These dwellings indicated to me that local 
prosperity had caused the tide of physical well- 
being to rise to the second or shelter stage. For- 
merly, ideas of luxury centred chiefly in food, 
which was consumed in a variety and abundance 
that would have made a dietitian shudder. The 
land is still one of plenty and good cheer, and 
a progress through the town would delight the 
monarch who said, ' Let me have men about me 
that are fat,' but other creature comforts have 
come to be considered also. The stage of personal 
adornment has yet to be reached: the men sel- 
dom have their hair trimmed or their trousers 
pressed, and the costume of the women is simple. 
The local attention to such matters seemed inter- 
estingly different from the metropolitan order 
of clothing, shelter, food. 

[ 204 ] 



Professor Maturin 

"But as it was not progress that I had chiefly 
come to see, I found myself returning repeatedly 
to the old town hall, which once sheltered the 
oldest bank and is still surmounted by a tower 
of strange local architecture, bearing an equally 
erratic clock. All this, like everything else in the 
place, seemed by no means so large or so impos- 
ing as I had remembered it, and the bank's dis- 
appearance prevented the repetition of our one 
local author's jest concerning 'the bank where 
the wild thyme grows.' But when I once more 
climbed the tower and picked out, one by one, 
the old landmarks, I felt all of my early fondness 
for the place return. No one, I believe, can be 
without a certain proprietary affection for a place 
upon which he has often looked down from a 
tower. 

"There, above the town, my memory of many 
of its personages became vivid. First, always, we 
admired the old Governor — we never called him 
'ex,' although he had been that for many years. 
A fine, burly figure, even in old age, he was usu- 
ally seen driving to or from his model farms in 
a vehicle which must have antedated the one- 
hoss shay. And he seldom passed without some 
one relating how, when a misguided ram, not 
being in position to be awed by his countenance, 

[ 2 °5 ] 



The Observations of 

had made the conventional attack, he expanded 
to his fullest height and, with his favorite, his- 
toric, expletive, thundered: 'Continental dam, 
sheep! What do you mean?' 

"The Senator, who logically came next, was 
by no means so impressive; for, being regarded 
chiefly as a provider of political places, he was 
forced, when he walked abroad, to assume an ab- 
straction profound enough to make him oblivi- 
ous of the hungry eyes of his constituents. I fear 
that his was not a happy life, at least when he 
was at home, which grew to be more and more 
seldom. 

"The General, however, loved to parade his 
tall, proud figure. It was currently reported that 
he wore stays; certainly he carried his shoulders 
always ready for epaulettes and his head poised 
for a chapeau. For years he longed to be ele&ed 
a Congressman, but always in vain. A tradition 
that he had once compared a poor man to a wet 
dog embodied the popular distrust of his aris- 
tocratic nature; and his set speech of compli- 
ment to each village where he spoke — that the 
fairness of its daughters almost persuaded him 
to renounce his bachelorhood — usually waked 
sarcasm rather than applause. 

"After the General came the Colonel, an at- 

[ 206 ] 



Professor Maturin 

torney so genial that, it was said, he habitually 
bowed to trees and hitching-posts, from mere 
force of habit. Every one suspe&ed him of stor- 
ing up popularity against the day when he might 
run for office. Whether he ever compassed or 
even desired such an end, I do not know. 

"The Town Beauty, I learned, had long since 
married an officer in the army. We had, I think, 
even more than our share of handsome girls, 
but to gaze upon her was such an unalloyed de- 
light that she came to be prized as one of the chief 
attractions of the town. It used to be said, jo- 
cosely, that after visitors had seen the new court 
house, they were always made to wait until she 
passed, before any one would show them the way 
to the fair grounds. Certainly she never disap- 
pointed the fondest anticipations, except during 
one sad season when the whole town mourned. 
Most inexcusably she had attempted to improve 
the lily and the rose of her complexion by means 
of a cosmetic, which must have been devised 
solely to further the sale of the same manufac- 
turer's healing lotions. The damage wrought was 
most distressing, and recovery was slow and 
anxious, but happily complete. There was some 
desire to express the public anxiety that there 
should be no more such experiments; but the 

[ 207 ] 



The Observations of 

lesson had been learned, and thereafter her love- 
liness only bloomed the richer. 

"The persons mentioned were all conspicuous 
members of the local aristocracy, to which the 
professions of law, and, to a lesser degree, of 
medicine, were the open sesame. The chief mem- 
bers of these professions, together with all such 
persons as were distinguished for family, and a 
selection from those who were distinguished for 
wealth, made up a somewhat exclusive social 
set, which gave an annual ball, invited friends to 
dinner, and went on vacations — sometimes even 
to Europe. As for the great majority, the men 
were devoted chiefly to business and sometimes 
to politics; the women to their homes and their 
churches, which last regulated all of their social 
as well as their religious activities. 

"For the recreation of our elders there was 
always a great deal of driving. It was possible 
to keep a carriage on an income that would not 
suffice for that alone in the metropolis. The car- 
riage roads were and still are excellent and the 
country charming, with here and there a stately 
old manor house for historic atmosphere. Even 
then the mountains were frequently resorted to. 
Now they are easily accessible, and boast not only 
numerous hotels, but many cottages to which 

[ 2°8 ] 



Professor Maturin 

the more fortunate go back and forth daily in 
summer. To my boyhood the mountains repre- 
sented not only untamed nature, but their ho- 
tels were outposts of the great world beyond. 
The mountains represented history also, for on 
the side of one was a battlefield, marked with a 
huge cairn of stones; and they meant literature, 
as well, for in one of the gaps was the home of 
an author whose novels and poems were in the 
town library. 

"With us young people bicycles were popu- 
lar to a degree that once, in the days of the old, 
high wheels, drew even a national meet to the 
old town. But the simple attractions of the place 
palled on our travelled guests, and the occasion 
began to look like a failure until, in the evening, 
the entertainment committee got together and 
started a false alarm of fire, which allowed the 
visitors to pull the hand-apparatus of the local 
fire companies madly about the streets, until 
their superabundant energies were exhausted and 
they went to bed happy. 

"These volunteer fire companies were centres 
of the most intense interest, making up in antici- 
pation and preparation for the practical efficiency 
which, happily, they were seldom called upon to 
demonstrate. They held innumerable initiations, 

[ 209 ] 



The Observations of 

ele&ions, anniversaries, and reorganizations; and 
they were always considering, with infinite atten- 
tion to detail, the adoption of new uniforms and 
the purchase of new equipment. All of which we 
youngsters ardently emulated with an organiza- 
tion which, in a vocabulary more aspiring than 
accurate, we called 'The Juneviles.' 

" Even more, if possible, than by the fire com- 
panies, our interest was stirred by the annual 
county fair, which, for four days in the autumn, 
crowded the town with visitors and filled the cen- 
tral square, of evenings, with all sorts of travel- 
ling mountebanks. This was eagerly welcomed 
as practically our only opportunity for familiar- 
ity with the histrionic art, for the attractions of 
the town theatre were not of a sort to be gen- 
erally approved. I remember, however, attend- 
ing at least one performance there when young 
enough to be tremendously puzzled by the 
difficulties of a harlequin in attempting to get 
through a wall the door of which mysteriously 
changed from place to place, while from time 
to time the wall became all doors or showed no 
doors at all. 

"Sometimes the few bookish people gathered 
into reading clubs or welcomed visiting lecturers, 
who also conducted discussions and criticised 

[ 2I ° ] 



Professor Maturin 

essays, when anybody wrote them. The only 
le&ure that I recall dealt with Rugby, and im- 
pressed me partly for Tom Brown's sake, but 
chiefly because on that occasion the most sensi- 
tive man in the town covered himself with con- 
fusion by absent-mindedly clapping his hands to- 
gether in pursuit of a mosquito, with the effect of 
applauding loudly at a most inappropriate time. 
The after-lecture discussions struck me then as 
very learned, but I judge now that I must have 
been easily impressed, since the only specimen 
that I remember was the statement that 'Carlyle 
was a bear, wallowing in a sea of words/ made 
by the principal of the high school. 

"Even now I should consider him as remark- 
able as his rhetoric. For he was not only the offi- 
cial head of the dozen schools in his building, 
but he also taught, alone and unaided, all of the 
classes in the high school, preparing us for col- 
lege in every subject from algebra to zoology, and 
doing it well. His only limitation was that he 
chewed tobacco, secretly, or as secretly as he 
was able with the eyes of thirty boys constantly 
upon him. 

"Not the least interesting feature of my visit 
was the opportunity it provided for noting the 
present status of old schoolmates. Most of them 

[an] 



The Observations of 

had developed indirections that might have been 
anticipated from their youthful traits. Even the 
fact that two of the most harum-scarum had be- 
come responsible bank directors was explained 
by the remembrance that youthful lawlessness 
may often represent merely a superabundance of 
excellent energy. The school dreamer had be- 
come the chief confectioner of the town, expend- 
ing his imagination on a new-art shop and a 
summer garden lighted by the electric eyes of 
Cheshire cats and owls perched in the trees. The 
serious boy had acquired practice as a physician 
until his stout body and large head seemed burst- 
ing with incommunicable knowledge concern- 
ing the local human comedy. The clever boy had 
become a successful attorney, more than satisfied 
with his profession as an excellent working hy- 
pothesis in an unintelligible world. The boy who 
had become a musician pleased me, perhaps, 
most of all. With a talent that would win dis- 
tinction anywhere, he rejected the distractions of 
cities for a simple environment, where he might 
discover and develop his spontaneous self. 

"If those that I had known as boys were now 
men, those I had known as mature were now old. 
The fine old clergyman who for years had led 
in every movement for things of good report now 

[ 2I2 ] 



Professor Maturin 

saw much of his seed bring forth abundantly, and 
had, moreover, the personal satisfaction of know- 
ing that his youngest son had won distinction as 
the first Rhodes scholar from his state. The one 
local artist, a landscape painter, still pursued with 
modest determination his honest, if undistin- 
guished, toil. The old florist was still the finest 
of idealists in his devotion to nature, irrespective 
of worldly considerations. I was happy to note 
that he seemed to have prospered materially, in 
spite of his fondness for giving and his distaste 
for selling his plants. 

" One or two old men that I had known were 
still able to regale me with memories of 'the 
Rebellion,' and of the installation of the town 
water-works. But most of my familiars of that 
generation had passed away. The two old ad- 
mirals who had so strangely chosen such an in- 
land berth for their final cruise, the old do&or 
who urged his horse by explosively uttering the 
words 'effervescent' and 'fundamental,' the little 
old librarian with his fondness for Josephus, and 
the sadly wheezy conductor of 'the Madrigal 
Club ' — even the decayed old gentlewoman who 
wore different colored wigs to suit her gowns — 
all had passed on. 

" But, in spite of many such absences, and of 
[ 2I 3 ] 



Professor Maturin 

some sadder memories, my visit was one of pro- 
found and lasting pleasure. I did not mind the 
omniscient small-town scrutiny, which somehow 
apprised my friends of all that I had been do- 
ing, even before I called. And I found the whole 
place full of the most delightful little interests, 
even for one who has so little of 'the restless 
analyst' about him. From the point of view of 
contrasting the residential values of capital and 
province, the advantages of the old town are, per- 
haps, largely of a negative character. But all the 
essentials of life are there, although in little, and 
success being so much less difficult, and failure 
so much less disastrous, the balance of vitality left 
over is satisfyingly large. It was not at all a bad 
place to spend one's youth, and it would be by 
no means a bad setting for one's old age." 



[ *H] 



I 



XXII 

The County Fair 

FOUND Professor Maturin deeply ponder- 
ing, the other evening, the season when the 
county fair stirs semi-rural communities, all over 
the land, with anticipation, realization, and fresh 
reminiscence. " No one of our institutions for 
pleasure or profit," said he, "is more firmly es- 
tablished; and yet students of local manners and 
customs and of social psychology appear to have 
given it small attention, and there is no notable 
record of it in literature, save that by Mr. How- 
ells in the beginning of 'The Coast of Bohemia.' 
Its phenomena, however, are easily ascertainable 
by any one who has rural acquaintance or access 
to rural newspapers." 

I asked him to instruct me concerning the sub- 
ject, and he continued substantially as follows: 
" For weeks before the great occasion these 
newspapers record and reflect the steady growth 
of the greatest enthusiasm of the year. Meetings 
of the Fair Association begin, and become more 
and more frequent, until it is announced that the 
secretary will be at his office daily. Immediately 
thereafter rumors spread, or are spread, concern- 

[ »s ] 



The Observations of 

ing larger exhibits than ever before, of live stock, 
of machinery, of household entries; in short, of 
everything. 

"Extra offices are ostentatiously opened for 
every sort of entry, and are as ostentatiously filled 
with more and more assistants, who periodically 
and publicly exhaust their entire supply of ex- 
hibit tags. After a secretly anxious interval the 
officers of the association begin to smile over the 
conscious possession of actual cash paid for con- 
cessions, and lavishly hire a negro of aldermanic 
proportions, in a costume boasting three hundred 
and fourteen brilliant patches and two hundred 
and three assorted buttons, to parade the streets 
in the interests of advertising. 

"At the last meeting but one before the fair, 
it is officially announced that the 'outlook is for 
the greatest collection of exhibits ever entered/ 
and the association decides, out of the fullness of 
its heart and pockets, to equip the new barn with 
electric lights, and to issue complimentary tickets 
to all clergymen who apply for them. 

" At the same meeting it awards the 4 feed 
privilege,' and appoints judges, ticket-takers, 
grand-stand ushers, and many guards, under the 
command of a military train-announcer, together 
with various unnecessary marshals and sundry 

[ *>6 ] 



Professor Maturin 

mysterious functionaries known as 'hill-men 'and 
'hatchet-men.' All of these, especially the night 
guards, speedily become heroes in the now almost 
painfully wide-open eyes of the town's small 
boys. 

"The Poultry Fanciers' Association likewise 
begins to hold frequent meetings, planning its 
own exhibits and its entertainments for visiting 
exhibitors, and announcing that silver cups may 
be given as prizes, in which event the cups also 
will be exhibited. Finally, at least one cup makes 
its appearance, and is displayed in advance, sur- 
rounded by many ribbon rosettes and streamers 
destined for such happy birds as are only less than 
the best. 

"Hotel and restaurant keepers hungrily fur- 
bish up old and install new equipment, increase 
their attendance and provide music, and make 
bids for the reward of virtue by refusing entertain- 
ment to such undesirable citizens as Mormon 
missionaries. Local real estate booms more loudly 
than ever, and local commerce plumes and preens 
itself with all kinds of 'openings' and 'fair-week 
bargains.' It keeps a jealous eye on competition, 
requiring visiting street vendors to keep moving; 
but it is so hospitable to visiting custom that when 
visiting custom's sleepy children tumble into its 

[ 2I 7 ] 



The Observations of 

show-cases, it grandly refuses to accept payment 
for the resulting damage. 

"And now 'the Midway' begins to cast its 
lights and shadows before. Its prospective patrons 
sorrow over the enforced absence of the glass 
swallower, who has at last succumbed to the rig- 
ors of his profession. But they are felicitous over 
the return of the electric woman, and look for- 
ward with eager anticipation to the yet untasted 
delights of riding on a 'sea-wave,' and of throw- 
ing rings at the heads of a flock of live geese. 
They read with avidity long newspaper accounts, 
by correspondents who sign themselves 'it,' of 
the approaching Russian midget and the Igor- 
rote village ; and the report that two balloonists 
are contesting for a concession distra&s them be- 
tween the comparative merits of a real wedding 
in mid-air and a cannon that shoots an aeronaut 
and a parachute. 

"Meanwhile 'Ten Nights in a Bar-Room' 
comes to town with a tent and a band that pa- 
rades, but so few persons attend that no perform- 
ances are given. Local entertainers, however, 
climb to the very pinnacle of competition. The 
Family Theatre provides 'An Entire Change of 
Programme!' and the Academy of Music pre- 
sents 'A Repertoire Company of World Wide 

[ 2.8 ] 



Professor Maturin 

Reputation ! ! ! ' The skating rink advertises a new 
floor, and a grand opening, with decorations of 
American flags and Japanese lanterns. And the 
dancing academy announces a series of fair-week 
dances with a new palm-room capable of seating 
an orchestra of six pieces. 

"Soon the zest of danger is added to the local 
frame of mind by the appearance of two men 
'from away/ who appear dissatisfied with all the 
watches that the leading jeweller can display, 
until it is learned, after their departure, that they 
have taken several with them for more leisurely 
examination. Thereupon all strangers are looked 
upon with suspicion, doors and windows are 
doubly locked; valuables are guarded; and local 
justice warns or incarcerates on suspicion the best 
or worst-known local offenders, and congratulates 
the town on the loss of fewer horses, watches, and 
pocket-books than usual. Anxiety over property, 
however, at no time approaches that concern- 
ing the weather, which cannot possibly last if it 
is good, although it will certainly continue if it 
is bad. 

" Local finance shows its approval of the gen- 
eral course of things by promising its bank clerks 
two half-holidays, and local learning smiles in- 
dulgently in paying its teachers earlier than 

[ 2I 9 ] 



The Observations of 

usual, and granting its pupils a two days' recess. 
The Grand Council of the Ancient and Hon- 
orable Order of Fraternity promises its annual 
visitation during fair week, and the church en- 
deavors to leaven the worldliness of the season 
by announcing the twenty-sixth annual conven- 
tion of the Woman's Home and Foreign Mis- 
sionary Society. 

"When the exhibits a&ually begin to arrive, 
one wonders how enthusiasm can rise higher. 
The fair grounds present an increasingly busy 
scene, until there is scarcely moving room be- 
tween workmen and wagons. Incoming teams 
grow more and more crowded with exhibits and 
exhibitors, fakes and fakirs, and, finally, with visit- 
ors. Every private house entertains old friends 
and new. Public accommodations are taxed to 
the utmost, and trading at the city market be- 
comes well-nigh frantic. 

"The visitors represent all sorts and conditions 
of men and women. The old woman who has 
never ridden on a railroad train and the old man 
who attended the first fair fifty years ago, the 
veteran who helped defend the town during the 
civil war and the business man who is taking 
his first vacation in twenty-four years — these 
divide interest with the principals in the run- 

[ 220 ] 



Professor Maturin 

away marriages, of which there are two or three 
daily. 

"Numerous former residents return for the first 
time in many years, and several new families de- 
cide to locate permanently. At the last moment 
the Governor finds himself unfortunately unable 
to be present, but the president of one railroad 
and the general manager of another come in pri- 
vate cars, and two rival political candidates are 
much seen but not much heard. 

"Various other distinguished guests arrive in 
touring cars, and countless other less distin- 
guished but equally dust-covered persons arrive 
in carriages. Street movement grows very brisk. 
Buggies clash, automobiles bump, and trolley 
cars jump the track; and over all begins to rise 
the call of the cabman, 'Going right out.' By 
night all the shops are brilliant, sidewalks are 
crowded, and in the square there are moving pic- 
ture advertisements, and the flaring torches of 
vending and performing fakirs. 

"The opening day dawns bright and clear, and 
every one jubilantly follows the call of the cab- 
men, until the town itself seems half deserted. On 
the grounds bands boom, marshals gallop, and 
crowds pour through and around the buildings. 
Within one of these, merchants display pipes and 

[ 221 ] 



The Observations of 

pianos, furniture and furnaces, hardware and 
haberdashery, shoes and sewing-machines, car- 
pets and candy, in apparently endless array. 

" On an upper floor the household department 
demands appreciation for two thousand four hun- 
dred and twenty-four glasses of jelly, six hundred 
and fifty-one jars of pickles, three hundred and 
thirty cakes, and eighty-nine specimens of home- 
made soap. Nearby in the department of fine arts 
are paper flowers, worsted mottoes, six hundred 
and fifteen pieces of embroidery, one hundred and 
forty-two cushions, four hundred and forty-three 
drawings and paintings, and one hundred and ten 
curiosities and relics, mostly 'over one hundred 
years old.' Among the latter the palm is borne 
by six cocoanut-shell baskets and a tray of seven- 
teen-year locust shells. 

"Elsewhere are many worthy flowers, shrubs, 
and trees; fruits, vegetables, and grains — celery 
a yard tall, pumpkins a yard wide, and forty- 
seven varieties of beans. The pavilions and 
grounds devoted to machinery present a bewil- 
dering array of ploughs, planters, cultivators, 
reapers, and stackers; of threshers, separators, 
huskers, shellers, cutters, and grinders; of engines 
and pumps, saws and mills, and of all things after 
their kind. 

222 



Professor Maturin 

"Every domestic animal, too, after its kind, 
seems to be represented in countless pens and 
stalls, until one tarries only long enough to sign 
the Poultry Fanciers' demand for a new build- 
ing and to be grateful for the railroad congestion 
that has delayed many other exhibits, and then 
departs, resolutely undefleclied by the charms 
of the Midway, the miniature railway, and the 
innumerable ice-cream, sausage, and popcorn 
stands. 

"By the second day it is a commonplace that 
the exhibition is the greatest ever given; every- 
body begins to count it nearly half over, and 
a few acknowledge that they wish it were. The 
cabmen complain of trolley car competition, and 
a sight-seeing automobile decides that its license 
is too high to allow it any profit. Lady visitors 
complain that there are not enough seats on the 
grounds, that admission to the grandstand is in- 
creased to fifty cents, and that the classification 
of the fancy work department is years behind the 
vogue. The judges of jellies and the connoisseurs 
of cakes are prostrated after their investigations 
into the merits of the two thousand four hundred 
and twenty-four and three hundred and thirty 
specimens to which they have submitted their 
respective tastes. 

[ 22 3 ] 



The Observations of 

"On Thursday, however, the third and, by 
tradition, the greatest day, enthusiasm and opti- 
mism return under the stimulus of the largest 
crowds the town has ever seen. Nobody can count 
the people, and estimates of their number are as 
inflated and soaring as the great balloon, which 
finally does its duty handsomely. Nine trolley 
cars are counted in the square at one time; there 
are eighty passenger coaches in the railroad yards, 
and one livery-stable entertains two hundred and 
thirty-four visiting horses! People who did not 
exped them receive premiums, and the indefati- 
gable Poultry Fanciers have a parade and a ban- 
quet, at which they announce their building as 
assured. 

" On Friday, the final day, the blessing contin- 
ues to brighten as it takes its flight. The Fair 
Association smilingly admits about eight thou- 
sand dollars profit, entertains itself, and its live 
stock and machinery exhibitors, at luncheon, 
promises the Poultry Fanciers their new building, 
and utters mysterious hints concerning a great 
aquarium for next year. Nothing mars the grow- 
ing satisfaction save that some unknown mis- 
creant drops a lighted match into an entrance 
ticket box and burns up approximately a bushel 
of tickets. 

[ 22 4 ] 



Professor Maturin 

"Such are some of the phenomena of the 
county fair," concluded Professor Maturin. 
"They promise much to any proper scientific 
and literary exposition. Here, as everywhere else, 
we need only a little more information and a little 
more intelligence to transform our contemporary 
superficiality into a realization of life that is, at 
the same time, strong and fine." 



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